."  / 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON   •   CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN 
THE  WORLDS 


BY 

ALICE   BROWN 

AUTHOR    OF 

THE  PRISONER,"    "THE    BLACK    DROP,"    "BROMLEY 
NEIGHBORHOOD,"   "THE  FLYING  TEUTON,"  ETC. 


"The  wind  that  blows  between  the  worlds." 
—  RUDYARD  KIPLING. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1920 

All  rights  reserved 


COPTBIGHT,   1920, 

BY  ALICE  BROWN. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  June,  igao. 


Nortoooti 

J.  S.  Cashing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 


'   *    O  v  > 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE 
WORLDS 


MRS.  PETER  HARVEY  came  down  at  ten  o'clock  in  the 
morning  of  this  winter  day  of  the  Boston  of  1918,  to  the 
second  floor  sitting-room  which  was  especially  hers,  and, 
early  though  it  was,  she  found  her  mother,  Madam 
Brooke,  a  small  woman  of  something  over  eighty,  there 
before  her.  Mrs.  Harvey,  who  also  was  small,  with  a 
plump  abundance  of  delicate  flesh,  her  pink  face  mas 
saged  to  the  extreme  of  scientific  art  unremittingly  pur 
sued,  her  shining  white  hair  waved  in  a  perfection  that 
flouted  nature,  hurried  up  to  her  mother  sitting  there  by 
the  fire,  a  table  with  book,  glass  and  handkerchief  at  her 
side,  and  kissed  her  soft  cheek. 

"  Darling,"  said  she,  "  what  does  make  you  get  up  so 
early?  " 

Madam  Brooke  owed  nothing  to  massage,  beguiling 
gloss  out  of  a  bottle  or  the  best  of  pink  powder.  She 
was,  though  much  given  to  laces  and  soft  fabrics  hung 
with  the  faintest  garden  scent,  an  old-fashioned  old 
woman,  very  sweet,  from  her  wholesome  habits,  but  bor 
rowing  nothing  from  the  expedients  of  age  not  yet  accom 
modated  to  itself.  She  was  as  different  from  even  a  sug 
gestion  of  youth  as  an  exquisitely  modeled  seed  vessel, 
with  gossamer  wings  to  carry  it  in  capricious  yet  decreed 
wanderings  on  strong  winds,  is  from  the  flower  that 
bloomed  to  make  the  seed  or  that  other  flower,  its  child. 

B  1 


THE  W*N:b:  '^BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 


her  da'urter^er^  much  alike  in  their  delicacy 
of  type,  only  that  Mrs.  Harvey  had  taken  on  veil  after 
veil  of  the  soft  flesh  that  is  so  beautifying  in  its  first  insid 
ious  advent,  and  her  mother  had  shrunk  to  slenderest  con 
tours.  They  had  the  same  blue  of  the  eyes,  the  abundant 
fine  white  hair,  the  sweetness  of  curved  lips.  But  the 
few  deep  lines  of  the  older  woman's  face  made  a  map 
where  you  travelled  to  keener  decisions,  more  unfailing 
rigors  of  judgment  than  you  would  look  for  in  her  daugh 
ter;  her  nose  was  more  decidedly  aquiline  and  she  had 
the  stronger  chin.  Perhaps  the  similarity  of  their  outer 
lives  might  have  moulded  them  to  some  identity  of  like 
ness,  the  winters  in  Boston,  the  summers  abroad  or  at 
their  sea-coast  home;  but  it  had  done  nothing  of  the  sort. 
They  were  ineradicably  different,  alike  in  nothing  save 
that  they  were  gentlewomen,  generous,  self  -forgetful, 
kind,  but  exercising  even  these  salient  qualities  in  ways 
so  diverse  that  in  Mrs.  Harvey  they  sometimes  seemed 
faults  and  in  her  mother  deliberate  naughtiness.  At  her 
daughter's  question  Madam  Brooke  looked  up,  with  a 
quizzical  interrogation  of  her  own,  but  said  nothing. 

"  I  do  like,"  said  Mrs.  Harvey,  "  to  feel  you're  getting 
your  ten  hours,  at  least.  And  last  night  you  were  late. 
Susanne  told  me." 

"  Susanne's  a  tattler,"  said  the  old  lady  pleasantly. 
"  Yes,  I  was  late.  What  was  the  use  of  going  to  bed? 
I  knew  you'd  keep  me  awake." 

"  I?  "  said  Mrs.  Harvey,  in  a  perfect  surprise.  She 
took  a  step  nearer  the  fireplace  and  set  her  beautifully 
shod  foot  on  the  fender.  "  Why,  I  was  down  here  every 
minute  with  Miss  Bixby." 

"  I  knew  you  were.  That's  what  kept  me  awake  and 
Peter  in  the  library  waiting  till  you'd  dismissed  your 
spooks  and  gone  to  bed." 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS  3 

"Don't!  "  said  her  daughter,  with  a  little  unaffected 
shiver  of  repudiation.  "  We  were  trying  to  get  Philip." 

"  I'm  not  including  Philip,  dear  boy,"  said  the  old  lady. 
"  You  didn't  get  him,  did  you?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  mother  of  the  dead  aviator,  in  a  low 
tone.  "  That  is,  I  wasn't  sure." 

Her  lower  lip  trembled.  It  had  taken  to  trembling 
since  the  news  of  Philip's  death  in  France.  Her  mother, 
with  an  inner  apprehension  of  her  own,  had  got  into  the 
habit  of  watching  for  that  trembling.  She  never  could 
help  remembering  that  her  sister  Clarissa  had  these  fits  of 
nervous  tremor  after  the  death  of  her  husband,  and  that 
she  never  quite  got  hold  of  herself  again.  But  she 
thought  it  salutary  for  her  daughter  to  be  drawn  out  of 
her  present  habit  of  action  by  a  robust  insistence  on  the 
facts  of  life  as  they  appear  in  everyday  dress. 

"  Whom  did  you  get?  "  she  inquired  brusquely,  in  her 
decisive  voice  piquingly  deepened  by  a  contralto  note. 

Her  daughter  hesitated. 

"Uncle  Edgar,"  she  said,  "Aunt  Clarissa,  father—" 

"  That  will  do,"  said  the  old  lady,  with  a  sudden  tremu- 
lousness  of  her  own,  either  anger  or  close  kin  to  it. 
"  Don't  you  take  your  father's  name  in  vain  nor  Sister 
Clarissa's.  I  won't  have  it." 

She  spoke  with  authority,  as  if  her  daughter  were  a 
little  girl,  and  the  daughter  humbly  accepted  it.  But 
she  did  venture,  after  a  minute: 

"  They  say  Philip  is  there  with  them.  They  all  §ay 
the  same." 

"  Then  why  doesn't  Philip  speak?  " 

"  He  is  too  tired.  He  hasn't  recovered  yet  —  from  his 
going  over." 

"  I'll  tell  you  why  he  doesn't  speak,"  said  the  old  lady 
fiercely.  "  Because  that  Miss  Bixby  of  yours  never  §aw 


4  THE   WIND   BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

him.  She  can  perfectly  well  risk  people  that  died  twenty 
years  ago.  But  when  she's  been  with  you  longer  and 
heard  you  talk  about  Philip  more  and  gathered  up  every 
word  into  her  neat  little  brain,  why,  then  Philip'll  come, 
too.  She's  a  minx,  that  Bixby." 

"  Mother,"  said  Mrs.  Harvey  desperately,  "  I  don't 
care  what  she  is,  so  long  as  she  can  take  a  pencil  and 
write  these  wonderful  things." 

"  They're  not  wonderful,"  said  the  old  lady  stubbornly. 
"  They're  a  kind  of  dribbling  philosophy  that's  neither 
here  nor  there.  You  sit  down  with  your  Bible,  if  you 
want  to  read  good  things  in  good  English,  and  stop  pay 
ing  a  girl  for  turning  out  this  half-baked  stuff  by  the 
yard.  If  she's  your  secretary,  let  her  be  your  secretary 
and  write  your  letters  and  hold  her  tongue." 

Mrs.  Harvey  was  much  cast  down.  She  looked  like  a 
child  who  finds  itself  deprived  of  a  harmless  solace  likely 
to  hurt  no  one.  And  that  she  said. 

"  If  it's  a  comfort  to  me,  mother,  I  don't  see  what  harm 
it  does  any  one  else." 

"  The  whole  atmosphere  of  this  house  has  changed," 
said  her  mother  vigorously.  Hitherto  she  had  been  si 
lent,  indicating  her  opinion  of  Miss  Bixby's  spiritual  sec 
retaryship  by  merely  holding  herself  aloof.  But  now, 
after  mature  deliberation,  she  had  decided  to  speak,  and 
perhaps  her  argumentative  cohorts  rushed  on  the  more 
wildly  for  her  sleepless  night.  "  Peter  —  and  you  might 
remember  he's  your  husband  —  he's  got  some  rights  — 
he  keeps  himself  shut  up  with  his  grief  over  Philip  because 
your  way  of  taking  it  sets  his  teeth  on  edge." 

"  I  never  could  have  believed  Peter  would  take  it  so 
quietly." 

The  admission  leaped  from  Isabel  without  her  will. 
It  was  one  of  the  spectres  in  her  own  sleepless  nights. 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  5 

"  That's  it,"  said  the  old  lady.  "  You've  driven  him  out 
of  his  mind  with  this  spirit  writing  of  yours.  No  wonder 
he's  as  dumb  as  a  fish." 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Isabel,  with  a  shade  of  unaccustomed 
irony  tingeing  her  soft  voice.  "Peter  may  be  feeling 
Philip's  death,  but  he  isn't  out  of  his  mind." 

"  No,"  said  the  old  lady,  with  a  different  irony,  one 
sihe  frankly  adopted  and  used  for  what  it  was  worth, 
"  he's  not  out  of  his  mind.  But  you're  on  the  road  to 
being.  And  if  you  don't  hold  your  horses  you'll  —  what 
is  it  Philip  himself  would  say?  —  you'll  go  dotty  your 
self.  Lord!  there's  that  girl." 

Madam  Brooke  was  exceedingly  irritated  when  she 
could  run  the  risk  of  letting  her  daughter's  secretary  hear 
herself  called  "  that  girl  "  with  the  tone  of  an  imprecation. 
But  if  Miss  Bixby,  entering,  did  hear,  she  gave  no  re 
sponsive  sign.  She  came  in  alert  though  subdued,  the 
perfect  secretary,  concentrated  purpose  and  yet  decent 
readiness  to  take  orders  and  obliterate  all  initiative  of 
her  own.  She  was  a  small  woman,  white-faced,  heavy- 
browed,  black-eyed,  with  a  head  made  unsymmetrically 
large  by  the  quantity  of  fine  shining  black  hair  she  evi 
dently  disposed  to  look  as  inconsiderable  as  she  might, 
and  that  yet  showed  its  weight  in  every  contour.  She 
Wore  black,  neat  to  the  last  point  of  care,  and  exquisitely 
kept  collar  and  cuffs.  At  first  it  had  rather  distressed 
Mrs.  Harvey  to  find  she  dressed  like  a  maid,  because  she 
thought  it  must  indicate  some  mental  repression  that  gave 
the  girl  pain.  But  when  Miss  Bixby,  with  an  air  of  not 
finding  the  topic  of  any  consequence,  told  her  it  was  a 
matter  of  economy,  she  rather  liked  it.  For  Mrs.  Harvey 
did,  deep  down  in  her  kindly  heart,  love  the  ritual  of 
things.  She  found  it  soothing  to  have  servitors  defined, 
just  as  she  liked  chapter  headings  in  her  novels.  They 


6  THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

told  you  without  trouble  where  to  begin  and  where  to 
leave  off. 

This  room,  perhaps  sixteen  feet  square,  had  a  large 
mullioned  window  making  a  recess,  and  in  the  recess  was 
a  good  sized  table,  in  an  austere  order  of  rolls  of  paper 
and  a  pencil  tray.  This  was  the  corner  where  she  and 
Miss  Bixby  sat  hour  after  hour  now,  putting  down  com 
munications  from  the  skies  by  the  hand,  though  not  the 
brain,  Mrs.  Harvey  could  swear,  of  Miss  Bixby.  It  was 
an  ideal  corner  for  work,  commanding  the  room  and  all 
who  entered  and  yet,  by  reason  of  the  recess,  secluded, 
and  they  had  the  window  light  by  day  and  a  perfectly 
placed  electric  bulb  after  dark.  These  were  its  obvious 
advantages;  but  Mrs.  Harvey  knew  she  had  placed  the 
table  just  at  that  point  because,  from  her  seat,  her  eyes 
looked  into  the  pictured  eyes  of  Philip,  her  son  who  had 
died,  from  the  big  framed  portrait  over  Miss  Bixby's 
head.  Miss  Bixby  went  on  to  the  table  and  dallied 
slightly  with  the  position  of  paper  and  pencils.  She  had 
left  them  in  order  last  night,  but  one  of  her  secretarial 
virtues  was  not  only  inflexible  insistence  on  leaving  her 
tools  exactly  disposed  but  the  further  precaution  of  run 
ning  them  over  as  a  pianist  tries  his  keys,  when  she  came 
back  to  them  again. 

"  No,"  said  Mrs.  Harvey,  in  a  rather  shaken  voice  that 
drew  a  quick  inquiring  look  from  Miss  Bixby,  instantly 
withdrawn,  "  we  won't  write  this  morning.  I'd  like  you 
to  go  out  and  do  a  little  shopping.  The  list  is  on  my 
dressing-table.  I  meant  to  go  myself,  but  I  — "  She 
stopped  there,  turning  her  back  on  Miss  Bixby,  who 
knew,  in  her  accurate  habit  of  getting  at  the  inner  mind 
of  the  woman  who  was  her  daily  bread,  that  there  were 
tears  in  her  eyes  as  well  as  her  voice.  Madam  Brooke 
knew  it,  too,  and  when  Miss  Bixby  had  vanished  out  of 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS  7 

the  room,  in  her  noiseless  way,  she  put  out  a  thin  lace- 
veiled  old  hand  and  took  a  fold  of  her  daughter's  skirt. 
She  twitched  it  a  little  as  an  unregarded  child  might  have 
done. 

"  Made  you  cry,  didn't  I?  "  she  said,  in  her  deep-tontd 
voice  that  showed  an  emotion  of  its  own  far  more  devas 
tating  than  tears.  "  I  s'pose  I'm  an  old  cat." 

Mrs.  Harvey  patted  at  her  eyes  with  a  little  ineffectual 
handkerchief  and  smiled. 

"  I  wish,"  she  said,  "  you  didn't  think  I'm  a  fool." 

"But  you  are,  Isabel,"  returned  her  mother  conclu 
sively  and  also  with  renewed  cheerfulness.  She  had 
somewhat  the  feeling  of  a  man  over  woman's  tears.  If 
Isabel  wasn't  going  to  cry  she  could  rally  her  some  more. 
But  cry  she  mustn't;  it  was  mean,  unsportsmanlike. 
"  Isabel,"  she  said,  "  it's  pretty  serious.  You  know  you 
didn't  have  one  son  only.  You  had  two." 

Isabel  looked  at  her  with  an  honest,  questioning  asaer- 
tiveness. 

"  Of  course  I  have  two,"  she  said.  "  Philip  '  over 
there  '  in  spirit  life  and  Brooke  on  his  way  home." 

"  Sometimes  it  seems  to  me,"  said  the  old  lady,  feel 
ing  her  way,  "  as  if  you'd  got  so  into  the  rut  of  trying  to 
hear  from  Philip  that  you've  forgotten  Brooke." 

"Forgotten  Brooke?"  Her  daughter  echoed  it  in 
amazement.  She  was  too  surprised  for  rebuttal.  "  How 
could  I  forget  Brooke?  " 

"  Well,"  said  the  old  lady,  watching  her  and  thinking 
she  was  perhaps  making  some  headway  into  her  closed 
mind,  "  Brooke's  alive.  He's  an  aviator,  too.  And  he's 
escaped  his  awful  perils  and  he's  coming  home.  That's  a 
wonderful  thing,  Isabel.  Flying  in  France  and  getting  out 
of  it  alive  and  coming  home." 

"  Why,  of  course  it  is,"  breathed  her  daughter,  still  in 


8  THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

a  confusion  of  surprise.  "  Don't  you  suppose  I'm  thank 
ful  Brooke's  coming  home?  " 

"  Then  why  don't  you  talk  about  it?  "  insisted  the  old 
lady.  "  Instead  you  sit  down  at  that  table  and  let  that 
Bixby  creature  write  you  things  out  of  a  trashy  romance 
and  say  your  father  —  my  husband  —  wrote  them,  about 
Philip." 

Isabel,  seeing  now  how  inadequately  mother  had  un 
derstood  it  all,  became  softly  argumentative. 

"  But  that,  dear,"  said  she,  "  is  because  Brooke  is  alive 
and  Philip  is  '  over  there.'  " 

"  Don't  say  '  over  there,' "  interjected  the  old  lady, 
with  a  sudden  brutality  startling  even  to  herself.  "  Say 
he's  dead  —  dear  Philip,  dear  boy !  —  use  the  good  old- 
fashioned  terms." 

Isabel  was  hurt  now  beyond  the  power  of  soft  words 
to  mollify,  and  her  mother  knew  it.  But  in  proportion 
to  Madam  Brooke's  exasperated  remorse,  it  only  made 
her  the  more  ruthless.  She  had  a  quick,  deep  nature  that 
was  forever  fighting  down  these  softer  impulses  and  try 
ing,  at  all  costs,  to  come  at  the  realities  of  things. 

"Don't  you  see,  Isabel,"  she  began,  "that's  what  it 
does  to  you  to  dabble  in  this  unhealthy  sort  of  business? 
You  don't  get  any  nearer  what  you  call '  over  there/  and 
you  entirely  unfit  yourself  for  here.  And  whatever  you 
may  think  of  this  world,  here  you  are  now;  and  what  do 
you  call  yourself  when  you  don't  do  the  work  of  the  place 
where  you're  put?  I  know  what  Philip  would  call  it. 
A  slacker!  That's  what  Philip  would  say,  Philip  and 
Brooke.  A  slacker,  a  quitter,  that's  what  they'd  say." 

"  It  is  something  to  do  for  this  world,"  said  Isabel,  in 
a  soft  monotone  of  resistance.  "  Do  you  know  any  bigger 
thing  than  proving  spiritual  communication  between  this 
world  and  the  next?  Think  of  all  the  mothers  —  0 
mother,  how  can  you!  " 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS  9 

"  And  yet,"  said  Madam  Brooke  astutely,  "  Brooke  is 
coming  home.  He's  coming  now.  You  expect  him  any 
day." 

"  Why,  yes,"  said  Isabel  a  little  wildly,  as  if  something 
had  been  proved  against  her  at  last.  "  Of  course  we 
expect  him." 

"  And  yet  you're  not  even  going  on  to  New  York  to 
meet  him.  You're  going  to  sit  here  watching  that  Bixby 
write  on  wall  paper." 

"  Well,"  said  Isabel,  leaping  at  an  excuse,  though  she 
knew  and  was  crushed  by  the  sudden  realisation  of  it, 
that  deeply  as  she  was  moved  by  the  thought  of  her  son's 
return  she  had  not  thought  of  meeting  him,  "  Peter  isn't 
going  either.  He  hasn't  mentioned  it." 

"  Mentioned  it,"  mocked  the  old  lady,  now  angry  in 
deed  at  such  lack  of  comprehension  of  the  man  they  had 
both  known'for  thirty  years.  "  Do  you  suppose  he'd 
mention  it  when  you  didn't,  and  let  you  think  he'd  got 
more  heart  than  you?  That's  not  Peter.  I've  a  good 
mind  to  go  on  to  New  York  myself.  Only  he'd  be  bored 
to  death  at  having  to  take  care  of  me.  I'm  glad  I  didn't 
invent  old  age.  It  must  have  been  the  devil." 

And  then  came  a  diversion  greatly  needed.  A  girl's 
young  and  resonant  voice  called  from  the  doorway: 

"  May  I  come  in?  " 


II 

THIS  was  Beatrice  Hayden,  an  intimate  of  the  family, 
the  familiar  friend  of  Philip  and  of  Brooke.  The  voice 
told  a  little  about  her  in  advance,  outwardly  cool,  with  a 
more  than  youthful  self-possession  never,  from  lack  of  a 
fine  decorum,  leaping  the  border  into  assertiveness,  a  clear 
eye  for  the  values  of  life  and  an  ordered  precision  in 
maintaining  them.  She  had  the  beauty  flowered  out  of 
the  right  kind  of  fine  descent.  An  English  girl  she  might 
have  been,  long  limbed,  velvet  cheeked,  thin  from  an  ath 
letic  hardness,  with  sweet  blue  eyes  and  a  firm  yet  smil 
ing  mouth.  Madam  Brooke's  eyes  dwelt  on  her  as  if  she 
were  a  flower  bordered  spring  in  a  dry  land. 

"  Come  along  in,"  said  she.  "  What  do  you  mean  by 
staying  away  all  day  yesterday?  " 

Beatrice,  entering,  laughed  and,  though  she  was  not  for 
ward  with  proffers  of  tenderness,  kissed  them  both,  for 
they  evidently  expected  it.  She  was  dressed  in  gray  with 
gray  furs.  She  completed  the  group  beautifully.  They 
were  very  pleasing  to  the  eye,  three  ladies  in  the  gray 
room.  Then,  seating  herself  at  Mrs.  Harvey's  inviting 
gesture,  she  looked  from  one  to  the  other  in  doubtful 
expectation.  She  had  come  with  a  definite  purpose.  That 
was  evident.  And  it  was  like  her  to  begin  at  once,  with 
no  indirection. 

"  I  saw  by  the  paper,"  she  said,  "  you  may  expect 
Brooke." 

"  At  once,"  announced  Brooke's  grandmother  with  em- 

10 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS          11 

phasis,  as  if  she  had  to  insist  on  it  when  there  was  so  much 
wobbling  over  the  return  of  living  sons.  Her  daughter 
commented  with  a  little  involuntary  sigh,  and  Madam 
Brooke  was  glad  to  hear  it.  Sometimes,  like  all  men  and 
women  of  a  mind  like  a  sharp-edged  sword,  she  was  a 
little  cruel  to  less  definite  minds.  Now  a  deeper  flush 
came  into  Beatrice's  cheeks  and  her  eyes  dilated  in  a 
way  they  had,  startling  you  with  the  vividness  of  their 
added  beauty.  But  their  gaze  did  not  waver  in  the  min 
ute  while  she  pondered  just  what  she  should  say  and  how 
to  say  it.  Meantime  Isabel  had  proffered  gently,  as  a 
way  of  telling  her  how  dear  she  was  to  them,  how  imme 
diate  to  their  hearts: 

"  You'll  run  over,  Bee?  We'll  telephone  you  when  we 
know  more  definitely.  I'd  like  you  to  be  here  when  he 
comes." 

That  gave  Beatrice  the  opening  she  needed.  She 
laughed  a  little  and  this  with  some  indication  of  embar 
rassment. 

"  No,  Mrs.  Harvey,"  she  said.  "  It's  dear  of  you,  but 
I  won't  come  over.  And  what  I  really  came  now  to  ask 
you  is,  don't  mention  me  to  Brooke." 

Grandmother  looked  at  her  with  a  sudden  keen  glance, 
but  Mrs.  Harvey  said  impetuously: 

"  We  shouldn't  have  time  to  mention  you.  He'll  ask 
for  you  the  first  thing." 

Beatrice  accepted  that  gravely,  and  passed  on  to  the 
next  step  of  her  argument. 

"  Yes,  of  course  he'll  ask  for  me.  But  don't  speak  of 
me  in  connection  with  Philip." 

Madam  Brooke  nodded. 

"  I  see,"  she  said.  "  That  is,  I  guess  I  do.  You  want 
to  begin  with  Brooke  where  you  left  off.  You  don't 
mean  to  bring  up  any  of  the  things  we've  got  hold  of 


12          THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

since  Phil  died.  He's  got  to  catch  on  first.  That's  what 
he'd  say.  You'd  rather  we'd  go  into  it  with  him  first,  and 
tell  him—  " 

She  hesitated,  and  Isabel  went  on  as  if  she  were  adjust 
ing  something  for  the  girl,  burying  the  outlines  of  it  under 
layers  of  soft  affection. 

"  Yes,  of  course  we  should  tell  him  you're  one  of  the 
family  now  and  have  been  ever  since  that  day  —  " 

"  The  day  the  news  came  about  Phil,"  said  Beatrice, 
"  and  I  went  to  pieces  in  this  very  room  and  you  saw  how 
I  felt  about  him."  She  said  it  with  a  perfect  composure 
of  voice  and  look.  And  yet  the  next  sentence  came  im 
petuously,  and  her  eyes  were  wet.  "  Oh,  haven't  you 
been  good  to  me,  all  you  Phil's  folks !  If  I'd  really  known 
he  —  liked  me  "  —  here  she  hesitated  and  went  over  the 
jolt  bravely  —  "if  he'd  said  it  before  he  went  and  left 
me  —  well,  as  I  wish  he  had  —  if  we'd  thought  more  about 
such  things  anyway !  " 

She  ended  with  a  dash  of  brave  audacity. 

"  If  you'd  been  married,"  said  Madam  Brooke.  "  Yes, 
that  would  have  been  the  way.  But  it's  just  as  I  told 
you,  just  like  Phil,  like  Brooke,  too.  Dear  darling  fools, 
both  of  them,  born  romancers  and  not  finding  the  road 
other  men  take  till  they've  stumbled  and  picked  them 
selves  up  a  dozen  times  and  banged  their  noses  and  their 
shins.  Isabel,  I  don't  see  where  you  got  two  such  scat 
ter-brains.  You're  commonplace  enough.  So'm  I.  So's 
Peter.  No,"  she  added,  with  an  afterthought,  "  Peter's 
a  little  queer  himself,  though  he  keeps  it  under  pretty 
well." 

"  I  believe,"  said  Beatrice,  with  a  little  smile,  her  trib 
ute  to  their  unexcelled  dearness,  "  you  meant  just  what 
you  said,  that  first  day,  when  you  asked  me  to  throw  over 
Auntie  and  come  here  and  live." 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS  13 

"  We  certainly  did  mean  it,"  said  Isabel.  She  had  pos 
sessed  herself  of  the  girl's  hand.  "  That's  one  reason  why 
I'm  so  anxious  to  get  a  satisfactory  message  from  Phil. 
He  must  have  something  to  say  —  " 

She  stopped,  for  Beatrice  had  winced  and,  with  the 
slightest  involuntary  movement,  freed  her  hand.  Isabel 
Harvey,  in  her  own  immediate  household,  was  surrounded 
by  the  unbelieving. 

"  But,"  Madam  Brooke  began,  "  aren't  you  cutting  it  a 
little  bit  fine,  this  leaving  Brooke  in  the  dark?  He  knew 
Phil  as  well  as  if  they'd  been  twins.  They  don't  look  so 
much  alike  for  nothing.  He  knew  just  what  sort  of  a 
dreamy,  unpractical  lad  the  lad  was,  and  that  he  could 
have  loved  a  girl  down  to  the  ground  —  " 

"  Yes,  Bee,  I'm  sure  he  did  love  you,"  interrupted  Isa 
bel,  "  now  I  think  back." 

"  And  not  say  a  word  to  her  when  he  went  away. 
Brooke's  the  last  person  not  to  understand." 

"  Oh,  he'd  understand,"  said  Beatrice,  "  old  Brooke. 
Only  Brooke's  dreamy,  too,  Brooke's  imaginative,  though 
it's  in  another  fashion."  She  gazed  at  them  intently,  a 
beautiful  look  of  frowning  earnestness.  She  hoped  to 
impress  them  with  her  view  of  the  event.  "  I  want  you 
to  promise  not  to  talk  to  Brooke  about  me.  I  don't  want 
him  to  be  influenced  into  taking  your  attitude.  I  don't 
want  him  to  say, '  They've  adopted  Bee  for  their  daugh 
ter  because  they  think  Phil  was  in  love  with  her.'  For 
he'd  come  into  the  combine  like  a  shot,  and  I  want  him 
unprejudiced.  Because,  you  see,  he  might  happen  to  think 
of  something.  He  might  say,  '  Phil  said  so  and  so  about 
Bee.'  " 

Madam  Brooke  nodded  her  perfect  understanding,  but 
Isabel  commented  in  a  worried  tone: 

"  He'd  say  that  anyway." 


14          THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

"  Oh,"  said  Beatrice,  as  if  now  she  had  something  to 
combat  that  would  make  it  all  the  plainer,  "  that's  just 
the  point.  He's  such  a  dear  fellow  he'd  go  too  far. 
He'd  be  most  awfully  sorry  for  me  and  imagine  what 
message  he'd  send  a  girl  if  he  were  in  love  with  her,  and 
then  he'd  think  Phil  sent  one." 

Isabel  looked  as  if  something  might  be  resented  here. 

"  I  don't  think,"  she  said,  "  that's  quite  fair  to  Brooke." 

"  Of  course  it's  fair,"  said  her  mother  promptly.  "  She 
isn't  saying  Brooke  would  invent  anything  consciously. 
She's  only  remembering  he  can  write  stories  and  act 
plays." 

Beatrice  smiled  at  her,  thanking  her  as  she  often  did 
for  their  communion  of  understanding. 

"  But  if,"  she  said,  "  no  matter  how  long  I  waited,  we 
were  sitting  here  by  the  fire,  for  instance,  and  something 
began  to  knock  in  his  brain  and  he  burst  out,  that  way 
he  has,  '  One  night  Phil  said  to  me,  "  Bee's  the  only  girl 
I  ever  liked,"  '  why,  then  I  should  know  it  was  true." 

This  was  Isabel's  opportunity,  the  sort  she  was  seizing 
upon  a  dozen  times  a  day,  only  to  be  rebuffed  by  one  or 
another  of  them,  and  she  embraced  it  the  more  fervently 
because  it  was  so  often  checked. 

"  0  my  darling,"  she  said,  "  why  not  try  the  automatic 
writing  and  get  Phil  to  tell  you  himself?  " 

Bee  looked  at  her  sorrowfully  and  shook  her  head. 

"  Couldn't  believe  it,  dear.  I  couldn't  help  thinking 
the  pencil  stole  it  out  of  my  brain.  But  now  —  promise. 
You're  not  to  speak  of  me  unless  he  asks." 

"  Of  course  he'll  ask,"  Isabel  insisted  all  over  again,  in 
her  jealously  affectionate  antiphony. 

"  And  when  he  does,  you're  not  to  speak  with  special 
affection  —  special  anything.  Just  say,  '  Bee's  well. 
Great  strong  moose  of  a  creature,  she's  always  well.' " 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS  15 

"  You'll  have  to  speak  to  Peter,"  said  Madam  Brooke, 
remembering  her  son-in-law's  intimate  understanding  of 
the  girl  and  his  silent  tenderness  over  her  in  her  strange 
position  of  having  confessed  her  love  for  a  man  who  might 
not  have  recognized  his  own  for  her. 
»  Beatrice  turned  on  her  the  clear  sincerity  of  her  look. 

"  I  have  told  him,"  she  said.  "  I  stopped  in  the  library, 
and  he  agreed  with  me  perfectly." 

"  Yes,  he  would,"  said  his  wife,  in  that  helpless  admi 
ration  she  had  for  him,  always,  as  he  was,  taking  short 
cuts  along  the  unobtrusive  way  of  his  intuition  and  being 
to  people  the  comforter  she  herself  aspired  to  be:  only 
she  had  to  have  everything  explained.  The  two  sons 
were  like  their  father.  They  were  altogether  what  was 
a  mere  strain  in  him.  Somebody  had  once  named  it 
poetic,  and  she  had  felt  a  relief  in  hearing  it  classified  and 
being  able  to  put  it  away  as  something  she  need  not  try 
to  understand.  But  heretofore  she  had  acquiesced  in  it 
and  followed  humbly  on. 

"  All  right,  Bee,"  she  said,  "  we'll  do  our  best."  Then 
Susanne  appeared  with  a  card,  and  she  read  aloud:  "  Miss 
Andrea  Dove.  Do  I  know  her?  "  she  added,  to  herself, 
and  sat  a  moment  mutely  interrogating  her  memory. 

"  The  young  lady  said,"  Susanne  offered,  "  it  was  some 
thing  connected  with  psychical  research." 

Susanne  was  not  more  learned  than  became  her  posi 
tion,  but  she  rattled  off  the  last  words  glibly.  She  had 
heard  them  a  great  deal  in  this  house,  within  the  past 
weeks,  and  they  had  a  confused  yet  vivid  meaning  for  her. 
She  saw  ladies  sitting  at  a  table  persuading  ouija  and 
planchette,  or  latterly  a  common  pencil.  She  heard  Mrs. 
Harvey  proposing  this  or  that  excursion  to  other  tables 
and  other  pencils,  and  Mr.  Harvey's  tentative  objection, 
"  Must  you,  dear?  "  To  her  tolerant  mind,  used  to  the 


16  THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

vagaries  of  the  employer  class,  which  might  wallow  in 
idleness  if  it  chose,  but  mysteriously  preferred  eccentric 
activities,  psychical  research  was  no  more  important  than 
any  other  plaything  of  an  empty  day.  But  her  delivery 
of  this  added  elucidation  had  upon  Mrs.  Harvey  an  imme 
diate  determining  effect. 

"  Yes,  indeed,  I'll  see  her,"  she  said.  "  Show  her  up 
here." 

After  Susanne  had  left  the  room,  Madam  Brooke,  who 
was  always  most  careful  to  preserve  the  decent  reticences 
between  the  family  and  "  below  stairs,"  forbore  to  sniff 
until  the  maid  had  got  well  outside  the  door;  then  she 
did  it  with  somewhat  diminished  effect,  owing  to  the  de 
lay.  This  she  realised.  A  sniff,  she  knew,  had  to  be 
served  up  hot.  But  her  daughter  looked  at  her  with  an 
undiminished  sweetness  of  appeal. 

"  I  shouldn't  dare,"  she  said,  "  turn  any  one  away.  It 
might  be  a  message.  It  might  be  Phil." 

"  It  might  be  a  gold  brick,"  said  Madam  Brooke  ruth 
lessly,  "  or  a  messenger  from  Mars  selling  stock  in  the 
canals." 

"  I'll  run  along,"  said  Beatrice.  She  couldn't  forbear 
touching  Madam  Brooke  on  the  hand,  in  passing,  a  tiny 
admonitory  tap  telling  her  how  naughty  she  was  and  yet 
so  much  in  the  nature  of  a  caress  that  it  emphasized  her 
dearness  also.  "  Love  to  Brooke  —  when  he  does  ask 
for  me,  you  know." 

She  snatched  up  her  stole  and  muff  and  was  gone,  and 
presently  there  was  Susanne  again,  vanishing  at  the  en 
trance  of  Andrea  Dove,  who  paused  just  over  the  thresh 
old  as  if  not  so  much  mutely  interrogating  those  who 
were  in  the  room  as  presenting  herself  for  scrutiny  and, 
if  it  might  be,  acceptance.  The  mother  and  daughter 
gave  her  a  look  of  inquiry  which  settled  at  once  into  sat- 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS  17 

isfied  approval.  Andrea  Dove  had  beauty  of  a  high 
type.  She  was  tall  and  slim  and  moved  with  an  easy 
grace.  Her  hair  was  the  rarest  bright  gold  touched  with 
red  and  her  skin  a  faintly  flushed  perfection  fitted  to  it. 
She  was  as  unlike  the  girl  who  had  just  gone  out  as  it  is 
possible  for  two  individuals  of  evidently  the  same  social 
plane  to  be.  Beatrice,  in  her  gallant  bearing,  suggested 
the  conventional,  the  rightly  "  placed,"  and  Andrea  looked 
as  if  she  had  seen  strange  circumstance,  perhaps  been 
driven  too  hard  and  too  far  and  felt  a  little  breathless  with 
it  all.  Madam  Brooke  found  herself  thinking  she  looked 
as  if  she  had  been  out  in  the  wind  and  it  had  swept  and 
buffeted  her  until  her  eyes  ached  with  it  and  her  nostrils, 
when  she  turned  to  face  it,  were  blown  wider.  There  was 
something  apprehensive  in  her  gray-eyed  glance.  She 
looked,  indeed,  as  Madam  Brooke  also  concluded,  highly 
nervous,  as  if  strung  up  to  a  task  she  feared.  All  this 
was  in  the  instant  she  stood  there,  before  Mrs.  Harvey,  in 
a  forward  movement,  indicated  a  chair  and  spoke  her 
name,  again  with  reference  to  the  card.  Andrea  Dove 
took  the  chair  and  began  at  once  in  a  low,  painfully  hesi 
tating  voice: 

"  Mrs.  Harvey,  I  hoped  you  might  be  in  need  of  a 
secretary." 

Mrs.  Harvey's  expectant  gaze  cooled.  "  This,"  it 
seemed  to  say,  "  is  not  connected  with  psychical  research." 
But  she  answered  promptly: 

"  I  have  a  secretary.    She  is  entirely  satisfactory." 

"  Let's  hear  what  the  young  lady  has  to  say,"  put  in 
Madam  Brooke.  "  I'm  not  sure  your  Bixby's  so  satis 
factory  you  never  want  to  think  of  anybody  else." 

"  How  did  you  hear  of  me?  "  inquired  Mrs.  Harvey, 
who  was  always  loath  to  dismiss  a  suppliant  unsatisfied. 

Her  husband  often  told  her,  with  the  tender  under- 


18          THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

standing  he  had  of  her,  that  she  believed  in  cutting  off  the 
dog's  tail  an  inch  at  a  time.  The  moment  she  asked  the 
question  it  seemed  to  ease  Andrea  off  on  the  second  lap  of 
her  dreaded  task.  It  looked  as  if  in  a  moment,  now  that 
the  interview  had  begun  to  move  as  she  imagined  it,  she 
might  be  in  full  swing. 

"  I  saw  your  name/'  she  said,  "  as  giving  a  large  sum 
of  money  to  psychical  research." 

"  Are  you,"  Mrs.  Harvey  asked,  the  keenness  of  her 
interest  whetted  again  by  this  slightest  of  hints,  "  inter 
ested  in  psychical  research?  " 

"  More,"  said  Andrea,  "  than  anything  else  in  the 
world  —  almost." 

The  last  word  seemed  to  be  an  afterthought,  springing 
from  some  deep  imperative  memory.  But  Madam 
Brooke  hardly  took  note  of  the  word  and  all  it  might  im 
ply,  so  discouraged  was  she  by  the  girl's  confessed  interest 
in  things  unseen.  As  they  pervaded  this  house  they  were, 
to  the  old  lady,  no  more  than  an  unpicturesque  and  dis 
orderly  form  of  witchcraft.  There  could  be  no  doubt  of 
the  honesty  of  the  girl's  enthusiasm.  Her  face  glowed 
under  it.  Her  eyes  met  Isabel  Harvey's  brilliantly.  She 
smiled  a  little,  as  if  turning  aside  from  a  too  eager  pur 
suit  of  her  aim,  and  said: 

"  I've  been  studying  stenography  and  typewriting.  I 
hoped  you  wanted  a  secretary.  Then  when  you  knew  me 
I  could  ask  you  for  what  I  really  want." 

"  And  what  do  you  want?  "  prompted  Mrs.  Harvey. 

The  girl  answered  directly: 

"  Money." 

Madam  Brooke  drew  a  quick  breath  which  was  not  a 
snort  but  very  near  it.  She  found  everybody  nowadays 
seeking,  with  a  sad  unanimity,  this  one  medium  of 
worldly  advantage,  money.  Sometimes  they  veiled  their 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS  19 

purpose  and  seemed  to  seek  something  else  while  they  at 
the  same  time  put  out  the  stealthy  claw  of  cupidity. 
But  this  girl  frankly  wanted  it  and  said  so.  Madam 
Brooke  was  neither  surprised  nor  disappointed  as  her 
daughter  was. 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Mrs.  Harvey,  temporizing,  "  that  wa» 
what  you  learned  stenography  for." 

"  Yes,"  said  Andrea.  "  We've  almost  nothing  to  live 
on  and  I  thought  —  " 

"  We?  "  put  in  Madam  Brooke. 

"  My  father  and  I.  I  thought,  if  I  could  be  your  secre 
tary  you  might  pay  me  six  hundred  dollars  a  year.  And 
if  you  would  advance  me  a  part  of  it,  my  father  could 
use  it  in  his  work.  We  could  live  on  what  I  got  by  copy 
ing  in  the  evening.  I  should  think  I  might  get  copying, 
shouldn't  you?  " 

This  she  addressed  to  Madam  Brooke  as  if  her  harder 
surface  indicated  a  faculty  for  pronouncing  on  the  valid 
ity  of  a  copyist's  ambition.  But  the  old  lady  was 
ready  for  her. 

"  Undoubtedly,"  she  answered. 

She  simply  couldn't  help  it,  the  girl  seemed  to  her  so 
honest  and  indeed  compelling  in  her  clarity. 

"  How  much  do  you  want  in  advance?  "  Mrs.  Harvey 
asked,  almost  fretfully. 

She  too  believed  in  the  girl,  but  she  felt  no  confidence 
in  her  own  nose  for  bargains.  She  knew  how  inevitably 
she  was  allowing  herself  to  be  led  —  or,  indeed,  wander 
ing  wilfully  —  into  one  of  those  paths  from  which  her  hus 
band  had  to  pluck  her  at  intervals,  for  invariably  they 
ended  in  purlieus  where  the  undeserving  flourish  on 
ill-gotten  gains.  Now  Andrea  did  recoil  from  her  task. 

"  Quite  a  large  sum,"  she  faltered. 

"  How  large?  "  asked  Madam  Brooke. 


20          THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

"  Five  hundred  dollars." 

"  But  why,"  again  Mrs.  Harvey  asked,  "  why  come  to 
me?" 

"  Because,"  said  the  girl  again,  "  you  are  interested  in 
psychical  research."  Then  ghe  laughed  a  little  sudden 
laugh,  as  if  finding  herself  more  stupid  than  she  had 
imagined.  "  How  badly  I  do  it!  "  she  said,  with  an  hon 
est  directness  they  both  found  charming.  "  You  see  I 
ought  to  have  told  you  first  about  father,  not  about  me. 
My  father  is  a  scientist.  He  has  always  believed  in  com 
munication  with  another  world." 

"  Wait,"  said  Mrs.  Harvey.  She  got  up,  pressed  an 
electric  button  and  Susanne  appeared.  "  Susanne,  ask 
Mr.  Harvey  to  come  here."  Then,  as  Susanne  departed, 
she  turned  to  Andrea  and  explained,  with  no  diminution 
of  excitement:  "  I  feel  as  if  you  were  going  to  say  some 
thing  very  interesting.  I  want  my  husband  to  hear." 


Ill 

WHEN  Peter  Harvey  came  in,  he  found  his  wife  and 
Andrea  Dove  both  standing,  faces  turned  expectant 
toward  the  door.  Madam  Brooke  had  wheeled  round  to 
the  fire  and  sat  rigidly  erect,  back  obliquely  to  the  room, 
as  if  tacitly  repudiating  whatever  might  occur.  Peter 
Harvey  was  a  man  something  over  fifty,  of  middle  height, 
generously  but  not  heavily  built.  His  large-featured 
face,  blue-eyed  and  florid,  was  arresting  from  its  expres 
sion  of  an  anxious  tenderness,  a  look  that  dealt  with  life  as 
it  did  with  individuals,  as  if  he  had  reflected  deeply  upon 
the  phenomena  of  things  human,  found  them  inscrutable 
and  despairingly  given  them  up:  but  not  renounced  them 
in  any  sense  of  shirking  the  anxiety  of  still  further  coping 
with  a  system  not  understood.  On  the  contrary,  he  was 
instant  in  eager  service  at  even  the  unspoken  appeal  of 
the  fellow  wonderer,  and  now  he  came  forward  to  his 
wife  with  the  look  of  receptive  inquiry  he  so  often  found 
her  challenging.  She  was  flushed  and  eager,  a  little 
nervous,  and  he  recognized  the  look  sadly  as  one  he  had 
become  used  to.  She  had,  he  was  resignedly  sure,  dis 
covered  a  new  medium  of  communication  with  another 
world. 

"  Peter,"  she  said,  "  Miss  Dove  —  Miss  Dove,  this  is 
my  husband  —  Miss  Dove  has  come  to  tell  us  about  her 
father's  work  in  psychical  research." 

Mr.  Harvey  bowed  gravely  to  Miss  Dove,  recognizing 
in  her  face  the  reaction  his  wife  too  often  roused  in  her 

21 


22          THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

psychic  ministrants.  She  went  too  fast  for  them.  If 
they  showed  her  a  hope,  she  transmuted  it  into  a  cer 
tainty;  she  assumed  they  could  work  with  the  lightning 
rapidity  of  a  magician  stocked  up  with  elixirs.  This 
grave-eyed  girl,  whom  he  at  once  liked  and,  in  spite  of 
her  tiresome  errand,  trusted  in  a  surprising  way,  had  come 
to  bring  them  something,  but  not  a  master  key  to  open 
all  locks.  That  he  knew,  from  long  dwelling  on  the 
puzzle.  There  was  no  such  key.  Andrea,  feeling  the 
meeting  was  embarrassingly  in  her  hands,  plunged  des 
perately. 

"  My  father  is  a  scientist." 

This  seemed  to  be  the  preamble  she  had  provided  her 
self  with,  the  spring-board  for  her  leap. 

"Sit  down,"  said  Mrs.  Harvey.  Already  her  voice, 
in  its  premature  certainty,  was  exultant.  "  Peter,  sit 
here." 

But  Peter  elected  to  sit  elsewhere,  so  that  he  might  get 
the  light  more  fully  on  Miss  Dove's  face.  She  sat  where 
Mrs.  Harvey  had  indicated,  clasping  her  hands  in  her 
lap.  And  the  hands  trembled.  But  Peter  Harvey,  his 
gaze  on  her  face,  absently  remarked,  in  a  way  he  had  of 
putting  down  mental  notes,  that  her  eyes,  lifted  to  his, 
wore  an  almost  commanding  look  of  sincerity.  They 
bade  you  believe  in  her.  They  did  not  plead  for  it,  in 
any  way  of  ingenuous  appeal.  They  made  a  calm  state 
ment  of  her  worth. 

"  Since  my  mother  died,"  she  began,  with  a  perfectly 
apparent  effect  of  controlling  her  breath  which  had  begun 
to  come  unevenly,  "  my  father  has  been  trying  to  get 
into  communication  with  another  world." 

"  Oh !  "  breathed  Mrs.  Harvey,  in  a  rush  of  abandon 
ment  to  this  new  solace.  "  You  see,  Peter.  We  were  the 
very  ones  for  Miss  Dove  to  come  to." 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  23 

"  How  long  ago  was  that? "  Mr.  Harvey  asked  of 
Andrea. 

"  That  mother  died?  Nearly  twelve  years.  Father 
isn't  old,  but  he  looks  like  an  old  man.  All  that  time  he's 
never  stopped  believing  that  some  day  he  will  do  it." 

"  Establish  communication?  "  Harvey  prompted  her. 

"  Yes.  I  tell  it  badly.  I  don't  know  just  how  far  to 
go  back.  But  father  is  a  scientist,  you  see.  He  used  to 
teach.  He  is  a  professor  —  chemistry.  But  about  the 
time  mother  died  my  grandfather  —  her  father  —  left  us 
quite  a  lot  of  money  and  a  place  on  Long  Island,  and 
father  stopped  teaching  and  gave  all  his  time  to  trying 
to  get  into  communication  with  the  other  world." 

11  Then  you  have  money?  "  said  Isabel  impulsively. 

Andrea  smiled  slightly,  a  sad  little  smile,  and  her 
brows  were  wistful. 

"We  had  it,  but  father  used  it  all  up  in  his  experi 
ments.  And  the  house  burned  down  —  the  Long  Island 
house.  It  caught  from  his  laboratory."  She  shook  her 
head,  smiling  in  a  rueful  way.  "  I  do  tell  it  badly,"  she 
said.  "  I  wish  you'd  ask  me  questions." 

"  These  investigations  you  speak  about,"  s^id  Harvey, 
"  what  were  they?  " 

"  That's  it,"  she  said,  with  an  air  of  relief.  "  The  very 
thing  it  all  hangs  on  I've  left  out.  You  see  father  be 
lieves  that  communication  will  come  in  a  perfectly  simple 
scientific  way.  He  believes  it  will  come  suddenly,  with 
some  new  discovery,  and  that  it  will  seem  no  more  mirac 
ulous  than  the  telephone,  for  instance,  or  wireless." 

Madam  Brooke  hitched  her  chair  to  an  angle  that  im 
plied  a  willingness  to  renew  communication  with  this 
world  if  the  other  was  to  be  so  reasonably  introduced. 

"  That,"  said  she,  pointedly  addressing  her  son-in-law, 
"  sounds  more  like  it." 


24  THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

"  Yes,"  said  he,  "  there's  some  degree  of  reason  in  that. 
At  least,  if  you're  going  to  play  with  the  idea  in  any 
form,  it's  less  offensive." 

"  Play  with  it!  "  echoed  his  wife,  in  a  tone  of  passionate 
rebuttal.  "  0  Peter,  we're  not  playing." 

Her  husband  was  near  enough  to  reach  out  his  hand 
and  give  hers,  on  the  arm  of  her  chair,  a  kindly  touch. 
It  admonished  her  to  remember  that,  whatever  road  of 
investigation  he  had  to  take,  he  was  always  with  her  in 
the  undeviating  effort  of  protecting  her  from  her  creduli 
ties  and  guarding  the  path  to  her  desire.  Andrea,  having 
now  reached  the  point  where  she  could  whole-heartedly 
back  her  mission,  threw  off  her  air  of  studied  concentra 
tion  and  spoke  impetuously. 

"  And  now  he  has  done  it." 

"  Has  he  heard  from  your  mother?  "  cried  Isabel  Har 
vey. 

She  was  keyed  to  an  extreme  of  agitation. 

"  What  is  it  he  has  done?  "  inquired  Harvey,  with  his 
patient,  unflinching  moderation. 

Andrea  addressed  herself  to  him. 

"  He  has  discovered  a  new  element.  It  is  something  like 
radium,  only,  he  says,  in  every  way  more  powerful." 

Isabel's  face  had  fallen.  A  new  element,  an  element 
sounding  to  her  something  like  a  feature  of  the  weather, 
seemed  to  her  far  from  the  magnificent  climax  of  her 
hopes. 

"  Where  did  he  discover  it?  "  pursued  Harvey,  looking 
at  her  intently  from  under  wrinkled  brows. 

She  stood  his  scrutiny.  Madam  Brooke  noted  that, 
wind-blown  as  she  was,  she  seemed  for  the  moment  to  be 
standing  in  some  sheltered  corner  where  she  could  collect 
herself  and  think. 

"  In  pitchblende." 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  25 

"  Where  they  found  radium." 

"Yes.  And  he  had  to  have  tons  and  tons  of  pitch 
blende  and  other  things  that  used  up  our  money." 

"  What  reason  has  he  for  thinking  it  has  anything  to 
do  with  another  world?  " 

Andrea  looked  at  him  with  an  intensifying  of  that 
compelling  sincerity  of  her  eyes. 

"  Why,"  she  said,  "  he's  got  flashes." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  flashes?  " 

"  They're  long  and  short.  They  spell  out  words,  just 
as  the  telegraph  does." 

Peter  Harvey  sat  looking  at  her,  more  and  more  sorry 
for  her.  "  Poor  child!  "  was  coming  from  his  lips,  but  he 
shut  them  on  the  words. 

"  From  your  mother?  "  his  wife  was  asking,  in  the 
mounting  excitement  he  knew.  "  Were  the  messages 
from  her?  " 

"  No,"  said  Andrea.  "  Not  from  anybody  we  know 
about.  That's  what  drives  father  almost  wild.  He  can't 
get  connected  sentences.  They're  words  here  and  there. 
But  they  all  say  the  same  thing.  And  he  is  perfectly  sure 
they  mean  he  hasn't  enough  olympium  —  that's  what 
he's  named  it  —  to  work  with.  They're  urging  him  to  get 
more." 

"  How  much  of  this  thing  has  he?  "  inquired  Harvey. 
"  Not  that  it  would  mean  anything  to  me." 

"  A  quarter  gramme.  And  he  must  have  more.  Don't 
you  see  he  must  have  more?  " 

Here  was  an  appeal  from  the  real  heart  of  her,  no 
ordered  argument  she  might  have  brought  from  some  one 
else,  but  the  cry  of  protecting  love  for  the  creature  it 
nurtures  and  succors. 

"  You  say,"  Harvey  began  hesitatingly,  with  the  deli 
cacy  of  one  forced  to  tread  ground  not  yet  firm  under  him, 


26  THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

"  your  house  on  Long  Island  burned.  You  still  have  the 
land?  " 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Andrea,  in  a  perfect  clarity.  "  That 
was  mortgaged.  They've  done  —  what  do  they  call  it? 
—  taken  it  away  from  us.  It  isn't  ours." 

"  And  why  did  you  come  on  here?  " 

He  asked  the  question  with  an  almost  conciliatory  gen 
tleness,  as  if  begging  her  to  remember  he  was  considering 
her  side  of  the  question  and  not  his  own  incidental  con 
nection  with  it  at  all,  and  that  he  was  trying  to  give  her 
a  just  hearing,  that  he  meant  even  to  be  generous. 

"  Father  thought  it  might  be  less  expensive.  Besides," 
her  look  of  liquid  appeal  resting  on  him  with  a  confi 
dence  he  was  quick  to  interpret,  as  indicating  she  believed 
there  was  no  need  of  concealing  anything  from  his  sym 
pathetic  gaze,  "  we  knew  you  lived  here." 

« I?  » 

The  word  betrayed  his  perfect  wonderment. 

"  You,  your  family,"  she  said  gently.  "  We  knew  Mrs. 
Harvey  had  given  all  that  money  for  psychical  research." 

Harvey  rose,  took  a  quick  turn  about  the  room  and 
came  back.  He  could  have  groaned,  in  futile  despair 
over  it  all.  Yet  he  was  glad  he  hadn't  indulged  himself 
in  that  bodily  easement  of  the  natural  man.  He  wouldn't 
for  worlds  have  had  her  repent  her  ingenuous  disclosure. 
So  they  had  come  on,  attracted  by  the  lure  of  the  gift  he 
had  so  unwillingly  allowed  his  wife  to  make  to  a  new  and 
obscure  association  of  dabblers  in  mysteries  they  knew  not 
what.  It  was  one  of  his  temporising  concessions,  buoyed 
by  the  despairing  hope  that  it  might  solace  Isabel  and 
let  her  get  breath  until  he  could  draw  her  at  least  a  step 
away  from  these  anomalous  explorations.  And  now  a 
father  and  daughter,  the  daughter  at  least  appealingly 
honest,  had  caught  the  gleam  of  the  benefaction  and 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  27 

dumped  themselves  on  him  in  a  trustful  expectation  of 
more. 

"  If,"  said  he  weakly,  seeking  another  avenue  some 
where,  he  did  not  know  where,  "  your  father  is  a  scientist, 
he  must  have  a  wide  acquaintance  among  men  of  his 
own  profession.  He  must  have  told  them  all  this." 

"  No,"  said  she,  in  a  depressed  tone,  as  if  this  were 
another  of  the  discouragements  involved.  "  Father 
hasn't  had  anything  to  do  with  scientific  men  for  a  good 
many  years." 

"  Oh !  "  said  Harvey.  And  all  that  occurred  to  him 
to  add  was,  "  I'm  sorry  for  that." 

But  she  had  her  answer  brightly  ready.  It  came  to 
him  that  she  had  needed  to  repeat  it  to  herself  at  moments 
of  her  own  inevitable  questioning.  That  was  why  it  came 
so  pat. 

"  Don't  you  see?  "  she  said.  "  They  didn't  believe  in 
him.  They  couldn't,  literal  men  like  that." 

"  But,"  said  Harvey,  "  there's  been  a  good  deal  of 
romance  in  scientific  research.  In  a  way,  it's  a  sort  of 
guessing,  full  of  surprises,  if  you  come  to  that.  Literal 
chaps  have  had  to  get  used  to  it.  A  scientific  man  ought 
to  be  the  sort  of  fellow  that's  prepared  for  anything." 

"  Oh,  but  they're  not,"  she  said,  with  a  conclusive  cer 
tainty.  "  Father  says  so.  He's  explained  it  to  me." 

So,  Harvey  thought  again,  she  had  had  to  go  to  him 
for  her  own  reassuring. 

"  He  says,"  she  went  on,  "  that  they  won't  accept  any 
thing  but  proof." 

"  No,  of  course  not,"  put  in  Harvey,  and  Madam 
Brooke  offered  an  impatient: 

"  Why,  no,  child,  that's  what  science  is." 

"  I  mean,"  she  said,  flushing,  as  if,  though  she  knew 
exactly  what  point  she  meant  to  make,  she  found  herself 


28          THE   WIND   BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

blocked  by  some  incredulity  of  her  own  in  offering  it, 
"  they're  not  sympathetic.  When  you've  only  half  proved 
something,  they've  no  use  for  you  until  you  give  them  the 
whole." 

"  Nevertheless,"  said  Harvey,  "  I  should  say  a  scientific 
man  would  find  his  colleagues  helpful  to  him." 

"  And,"  she  continued,  lifting  her  head  a  little  as  if  this 
might  not  be  a  peculiarity  to  advance  and  yet  she  wai 
determined  to  be  proud  of  it,  "  maybe  father  wanted  to 
keep  his  own  discovery  to  himself  till  he  could  offer  it  to 
the  world.  It  would  be  a  shame  if  he  should  work  all 
these  years  and  then  have  some  other  man  step  in  and 
take  the  credit,  now  wouldn't  it?  " 

"  Most  unfortunate,"  said  Harvey  gravely.  "  Yet  it 
happens." 

And  now  Isabel,  who  had  been  looking  from  one  to  the 
other  in  a  seething  impatience,  found  herself  unable  to 
leave  the  issue  at  this  lagging  pace. 

"  But  Peter,"  she  said,  "  whatever  scientific  men  might 
feel,  it's  perfectly  clear  what  we  ought  to  do." 

He  had  known  she  would  say  that,  though  he  couldn't 
have  told  at  what  point  it  would  come,  and  he  accepted 
it  patiently.  Madam  Brooke  used  to  repeat  to  herself, 
with  the  relish  an  accurate  mind  has  for  definitions  of 
uncharted  emotions:  "That  slow  courage  known  as 
patience."  It  was  the  efflorescence  of  his  feeling  to 
ward  his  wife,  whom  he  loved  with  an  unwavering  devo 
tion  and  protected  at  every  turn  from  the  consequences  of 
her  own  gentle  rashness.  Now  he  gave  her  hand  an 
other  warning  touch  and,  instead  of  answering  her  di 
rectly,  said: 

"  I  should  think  the  most  practical  thing  is  for  me  — 
for  us  —  to  see  Mr.  Dove." 

Isabel  nodded  triumphantly.    So  assured  was  »he  of 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS          29 

the  integrity  of  the  issue  that  she  felt  perfectly  certain 
the  day  was  won.  If  Peter  saw  him,  he  would  write  a 
cheque.  Harvey,  glancing  at  Andrea  to  see  how  she 
took  it,  found  himself  warming  at  the  eager  delight  that 
overspread  her  face.  It  was  queer,  he  told  himself  in 
wardly,  with  a  whimsical  perplexity,  how  bent  they 
three  were  on  having  her  come  out  right,  she  and  her 
mission.  It  seemed  as  if  they  had  a  recognised  compact 
of  belief  in  her.  And  as  if  joy  brought  its  own  intoxica 
tion  she  burst  out  into  a  little  cascade  of  talking,  telling 
them  what  they  never  would  have  thought  of  asking  her: 
all  about  the  everyday  fortunes  of  olympium  and  how 
they  guarded  it  from  covetous  hands.  The  world  was 
against  them,  she  implied,  but  smilingly,  as  if  she  did 
not  fear  it  any  more,  now  she  had  found  them;  and  her 
father  had  invented  the  simplest  as  well  as  the  cleverest 
scheme  for  hiding  it.  When  she  told  them  what  it  was, 
they  admired  it  sufficiently  and  always  the  figure  in  the 
foreground,  her  father,  with  it.  Then,  without  warning, 
the  tears  rushed  into  her  eyes. 

"  It's  wonderful,"  she  said  frankly,  "  to  talk  with  some 
body  again,  somebody  like  you.  And  father'll  feel  so, 
too.  You'll  question  him  and  he'll  tell  you  everything 
you  want  to  know.  It'll  do  him  so  much  good.  We've 
been  very  much  alone." 

"  Then,"  said  Harvey,  pulling  out  his  watch,  "  what 
if  we  should  take  you  round  there  now,  my  wife  and  I?  " 

Mrs.  Harvey  made  a  little  murmurous  sound  of  ap 
proval  and  came  to  her  feet,  eager,  Madam  Brooke  saw, 
with  an  inward  lament  over  her  credulity,  to  lose  no  time 
in  getting  her  hat  and  cloak.  But  Andrea  hesitated. 
She  was  demurring. 

"  If  you  don't  mind,"  she  said  apologetically,  "  not  just 
now.  Not  to-day." 


30          THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

Harvey  felt  rebuffed.  She  wasn't  meeting  them  with 
the  satisfactory  promptness  he  had  expected. 

"  Oh,  very  well,"  he  said,  and  Andrea,  seeming  t©  guess 
how  she  had  impressed  him,  at  once  explained: 

"  Father's  not  strong.  It  would  startle  him.  Do  you 
see?  " 

"  Perfectly/'  said  Harvey,  relinquishing  his  plan.  "  It 
doesn't  matter.  We'll  go  another  day." 

But  he  was  plainly  aware  that  he  had  wanted  to  come 
upon  father  before  the  scene  could  be  set  to  influence  or 
hamper  him  in  any  way.  There  might  not  be  any  such 
way,  but  he  was  hard-headed  and  keen  in  the  measure 
of  his  kindliness,  and  if  he  was  to  help  father  along  the 
difficult  road  of  achievement,  he  could  do  it  only  accord 
ing  to  his  own  consistencies. 

"  But,"  said  Andrea,  rising,  "  if  you  could  come  to 
morrow?  Could  you?  " 

She  looked  at  him  in  anxious  expectation.  It  was  per 
fectly  apparent  she  had  weighed  the  value  of  Isabel's 
enthusiasm,  and  knew  there  was  no  need  of  whipping  it 
up  further.  But  Isabel  answered: 

"  Yes.  To-morrow  morning.  You  could,  Peter,  could 
n't  you?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  her  husband,  rather  drily.  "  In  case 
Brooke  isn't  due.  But  he'll  telephone  us,  no  doubt,  from 
New  York." 

Madam  Brooke  gave  a  little  murmur,  a  commentary, 
Isabel  knew,  on  the  incredible  fact  that  she  had  become 
so  absorbed  in  this  chase  of  the  unknown  that  she  had 
forgotten  her  son's  return.  Isabel  flushed. 

"  Of  course,"  she  said,  in  a  low  tone,  as  if  she  defended 
herself  and  was  ashamed  of  the  necessity.  "  Of  course  I 
meant  if  he  doesn't  come." 

"  Then,"  said  Harvey,  "  shall  we  say  ten?  eleven?  " 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS          31 

"  Ten,  please,"  said  Andrea,  and  rose  to  go. 

But  as  she  turned,  her  eyes  fell  for  the  first  time  on  the 
picture  by  the  window  niche,  the  young  man  in  his  avi 
ator  cap  and  coat.  She  stood,  blanched  and  petrified, 
staring,  and  Harvey  took  a  step  forward,  thinking  she 
was  going  to  fall.  He  had  no  experience  of  the  modern 
girFs  fainting,  but  for  that  instant  he  was  sure  the  girl 
before  him  had  lost  her  grip  on  conscious  life.  But  she 
evidently  got  hold  of  something  vitally  controlling.  She 
swayed,  recovered  herself  and  stood  for  a  moment  as  if 
she  were  commanding  her  blood  back  to  its  task.  But 
her  eyes  did  not  leave  the  picture.  She  spoke  in  a 
choked  yet  steady  voice: 

"  Who  is  that?  " 

"  Why,"  said  Isabel,  "  that  is  my  son.  You  knew 
I  had  lost  my  son." 

"  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harvey,"  said  Madam  Brooke  inexo 
rably,  as  if  she  were  reminding  her  daughter  that  she  was 
not  alone  in  the  rich  heritage  of  grief,  "  have  lost  their 
son." 

Andrea  spoke  again,  and  now  as  if  from  a  horror  she 
could  not  accept: 

"  Was  he  —  your  son?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Harvey  patiently,  "  this  was  our  son.  He 
was  an  aviator.  He  was  killed." 

He  had  never  shirked  direct  statement  of  that  fact. 
Perhaps  he  was  the  more  unflinchingly  direct  because  his 
wife  indulged  herself  in  all  the  palliating  divagations  to 
indicate  death.  One  of  them,  at  which  Peter  shuddered, 
was  that  Philip  had  "  passed  over  into  spirit  life."  His 
curtness  was  the  dignified  reaction  from  her  dodging  the 
stark  issue.  Only  so,  it  seemed  to  him  in  his  unspoken 
protest  against  draping  death  with  the  tinsel  of  revolt, 
could  he  preserve  his  awe  before  the  wonder  of  it  and  bear 


32          THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

the  anguish  of  it  at  all.  Andrea  gave  a  little  moan,  in 
stantly  suppressed.  In  spite  of  her  determined  quietude, 
she  had  become  wild-eyed.  Her  face  was  drawn  and 
white. 

"  To-morrow  then,"  she  said,  and,  without  a  civil  pre 
tence  of  a  conventional  leave-taking,  she  wag  gone. 


IV 

AT  the  foot  of  a  West  End  street  that  runs  down  hill 
to  the  river,  where  reclaimed  old  houses  stand  in  neigh 
borly  nearness  to  queer  shops  and  accommodation  for 
motor  cars  and  beasts,  is  a  stable  of  no  great  size  which 
had  been  taken  as  a  daring  speculation  by  a  young  deco 
rator,  to  do  over  into  a  bizarre  sort  of  display  and  sales 
room  with  what  might  prove,  as  fortune  favored  him, 
janitor's  quarters  or  his  own.  This  was  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war,  and  he  went  off  at  once  for  service,  desperately 
disposing  of  his  holding  to  a  firm  that  could  neither  let 
the  place  at  once  as  it  was  nor  enter  upon  the  risk  of  re 
making.  This  was  the  home  Professor  Dove  had  fallen 
upon  in  his  search  through  the  lower  streets  of  the  West 
End  for  inexpensive  quarters  that  would  give  him  space 
and  privacy.  The  interior  had  been  cleaned  and 
sheathed,  the  latter  roughly,  because  the  young  decora 
tor  had  great  schemes  of  stained  backgrounds  and  tapes 
tries  of  sorts,  the  plumbing  was  honest,  and  a  partition 
cutting  off  a  third  of  the  floor  space  ensured  domestic 
privacy  to  whatever  tenant  might  undertake  the  care  of 
it.  Within  that  third  was  now  Mr.  Dove's  laboratory. 
He  worked  and  slept  there.  Nobody  entered  it  but  him 
self,  and  so  acutely  nervous  had  he  grown  in  the  last 
weeks  that  Andrea  was  sometimes  forbidden  to  enter  it 
from  day's  end  to  day's  end.  He  spread  up  his  bed  him 
self.  At  least  she  tried  to  believe  he  did,  but  in  theo 
D  33 


34  THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

last  desperate  days  of  his  despair  over  his  halting  project 
she  thought  it  more  likely  that  he  threw  himself  down 
as  he  was  and  dozed  away  such  part  of  the  night  as  he 
found  himself  too  exhausted  for  work.  But  day  and 
night,  she  felt,  in  her  passionate  sympathy,  were  alike 
unfriendly  to  him.  The  street  door  opened  into  a  small 
square  hall,  which  had  once  been  the  office  of  the  stable, 
and  that  into  the  room  Andrea  had  fitted  up  for  a  general 
living  room.  The  table  at  which  they  ate  was  in  the 
middle  of  this  room  and  her  couch  bed  —  a  makeshift  she 
had  never  heard  of  until  she  came  within  Boston's  lodg 
ing  area  —  in  one  corner.  It  was  a  forlorn  scene  of  do 
mestic  expedients,  dark,  for  it  fronted  north  and  was  in 
adequately  supplied  with  windows,  dulled  according  to  ar 
tistic  theories  inadequately  carried  out,  but  kept  in  the 
order  of  a  ship's  cabin  and  scrubbed  exquisitely  clean. 
Here,  after  her  interview  with  the  Harveys  and  on  the 
heels  of  her  agitation  at  the  end  of  it,  Andrea  came,  let 
herself  in,  stepped  from  the  hall  into  the  living  room  and 
began  calling: 

"  Father!  father!" 

This  was  an  almost  unknown  procedure.  He  was 
guarded,  and  always  expected  to  be,  from  noise  even  so 
slight  as  that  of  her  footfall  outside  his  door.  Sometimes, 
when  he  had  been  quiet  too  long  at  his  mysterious  tasks, 
she  would  creep  to  his  threshold  to  listen  and  steal  away 
again  when  she  heard  him  stir.  But  this  he  did  not  know. 
Indeed,  he  thought  little  about  Andrea  except  as  another 
hand  that  helped  him  reach  up  to  the  sky  and  pluck  down 
lightning  to  warm  the  hearths  of  men.  He  was  as  de 
pendent  on  her  and  as  little  conscious  of  his  dependence 
as  the  child  on  its  mother's  breast.  Andrea  threw  off  her 
hat  and  coat  and  mechanically  put  them  in  their  place. 
But  still  she  summoned  him.  The  excitement  that  had 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS          35 

almost  overthrown  her  before  she  left  the  Harveys  was 
mounting  higher  now.  She  seemed  desperately  anxious 
to  find  relief  from  it,  and  involuntarily  she  called  upon 
the  one  being  near  enough  to  help  her.  At  her  repeated 
cry,  he  came  out  from  his  room,  perplexedly  alarmed,  ir 
ritated  at  the  small  commotion. 

"  Well?  well?  "  said  he.    "  What  is  it?  " 

He  stood  waiting  for  her  to  speak,  half  turned  on  the 
instant  of  halting,  as  if  uncontrollably  impatient  to  get 
back  to  his  den.  Andrea  ran  to  him.  She  had  lost  all 
sense  of  his  sacred  immunity  from  interruption. 

"  Father !  "  she  said  again,  in  a  low,  sobbing  voice,  and 
clung  to  him. 

Andrew  Dove  found  himself  in  such  an  unfamiliar  posi 
tion  that  he  could  only  look  down  at  her  irresolutely  and 
turn  a  fraction  more  to  that  refuge  of  the  laboratory. 
He  put  out  one  thin  hand  and  touched  her  shoulder  re- 
mindingly. 

"  Well,"  he  said  again,  "  what  is  it?  " 

But  Andrea,  her  head  bent  until  her  face  was  hidden 
in  his  sleeve,  could  not  at  once  reply.  As  they  stood 
there,  she  in  her  trouble  and  he  in  a  helplessness  of  per 
plexity  that  looked  like  age  as  vulnerable  to  grief  as  it 
was  unfitted  to  defend  itself,  Andrea  felt  how  miserable 
they  were  and  how  alone.  Her  father  was  not,  as  she 
so  often  told  herself,  an  old  man,  yet  the  task  he  had  set 
himself  and  his  fevered  activity  in  it  had  piled  years  upon 
him.  He  was  a  tall  man,  slightly  bent  in  the  shoulders, 
as  thin  as  it  is  possible  for  the  human  frame  to  be.  His 
delicate,  high-nosed  face  was  like  a  skilfully  modeled 
structure,  the  fine  ivory  skin  clinging,  strained  yet 
wrinkled,  to  the  bones.  It  was  a  face  of  beautiful  death, 
a  sort  of  petrifying  and  marbling  of  the  flesh.  Only  his 
eyes,  black,  burning,  passionately  fanatical,  launched  the 


36          THE   WIND   BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

light  that  repudiated  death.  They  waved  the  banner  of 
unconquered  life.  They  were  so  fiercely  masterful  that 
it  seemed  as  if  they  alone  might  have  compelled  the  frail 
body  to  its  tasks.  But  in  that  moment  he  stood  there, 
longing  to  get  back  to  his  work,  perplexedly  collecting  his 
disturbed  mind  to  meet  this  new  onslaught  of  Andrea, 
suddenly  the  whole  thing  came  rushing  back  upon  him, 
the  errand  she  had  gone  on,  his  urgent  coaching  of  her 
for  her  part.  She  had  succeeded.  Her  emotion  could 
have  no  other  cause.  He  was  childishly  impervious  to 
the  existence  of  any  need  but  his  own,  and  now,  know 
ing  she  had  come  back  to  him  with  her  errand  accom 
plished,  he  thrust  her  from  him  a  pace  and  shook  her  arm 
in  impatient  reminder. 

"  You've  got  it,"  he  cried,  in  a  high  demanding  voice. 
"  You've  got  the  money." 

Andrea,  rebuffed,  collected  herself  in  an  uncomplain 
ing  way,  and  wiped  her  eyes,  not  looking  at  him.  For  a 
course  of  years  that  seemed  long  in  her  girl's  life  she  had 
not  demanded  anything.  In  that  onslaught  of  her  emo 
tions  she  had  done  it  at  last  unthinkingly,  and  now  he 
had  reminded  her  that  she  must  get  herself  in  hand. 

"  Sit  down,"  he  said  impatiently.  He  took  a  chair  and 
sat  resting  his  hand  on  the  table,  the  thin  fingers  tapping. 
A  look  of  eagerness  came  into  his  face.  "How  much?" 
he  asked.  "  How  much?  " 

Andrea,  entirely  her  pitifully  composed  self,  took  a 
chair  opposite  him,  and  looked  him  gravely  in  the  face, 
as  if  knowing  she  had  to  hold  him  to  a  fixed  point  of  view. 
Else  how  should  she  get  an  instant's  consideration  of  what 
she  had  to  say? 

"  Father,"  she  began,  "  I've  got  something  to  tell  you." 

"  Of  course  you  have,"  he  answered.  Her  slowness 
irritated  him.  "Tell  me  how  much." 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS          37 

She  shook  her  head  slightly.  To  his  amazed  compre 
hension  she  looked  obstinate. 

"  Father,"  she  said,  leaning  across  the  table  and  speak 
ing  with  a  determined  gentleness  of  composure,  "  their 
son  was  an  aviator.  He  was  killed." 

He  looked  at  her  a  moment,  frowning  over  the  inex 
plicable  change  in  her. 

"  Of  course  he  was,"  he  said.  "  That's  why  you  went 
to  them.  That's  why  his  mother  gave  the  fund  for  psy 
chical  research." 

"  I  knew  he  was  killed,"  she  said,  "  but  I  didn't  know 
who  he  was." 

"  Why,"  said  Dove  quietly,  watching  her  because  she 
seemed  so  strange,  "  he  was  their  son." 

"  But,"  she  said,  paying  no  attention  to  his  attempts 
to  guide  her  into  a  rational  channel,  "  just  as  I  was  going 
out  I  saw  him,  his  picture.  And  I  knew  him.  Father, 
I  knew  him." 

His  interest  died. 

"  You'd  seen  his  picture  before,"  he  said.  "  It  must 
have  been  in  the  papers,  a  prominent  family  like  that. 
I  didn't  see  it  myself,  but  it  must  have  been  there." 

"  Over  a  year  ago,"  said  she,  in  a  mounting  excite 
ment  that,  in  spite  of  his  reason,  began  to  communicate 
itself  to  him,  "  I  took  the  long  walk  to  the  beach.  At 
home,  you  know,  father.  Before  the  house  was  burned." 

He  nodded.  It  was  all  unnecessarily  dull.  He  wanted 
to  know  whether  she  had  brought  him  a  promise  of  money 
and  to  go  back  to  his  laboratory. 

"I'd  been  watching  an  air-plane,"  she  said.  She 
talked  fast  now  and  with  a  succinctness  that  told  she  had 
often  been  over  the  story  in  her  mind.  "  It  came  down. 
Something  was  the  matter.  It  didn't  crash  down.  It 
just  came,  like  a  bird  with  a  hurt  wing.  And  I  was  there, 


38          THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

and  the  man  in  it  saw  me,  and  he  called  to  me,  and  came, 
and  we  began  to  talk,  and  we  talked  all  that  forenoon. 
And  I  didn't  go  to  the  sea.  And  then  another  plane  came. 
He  knew  the  man  in  that.  And  I  went  away.  And  next 
morning  I  went  back  to  the  spot  and  they  were  gone. 
Of  course  they  were.  I  expected  it.  But  father,  he  was 
gone." 

The  intensity  of  her  voice  and  the  sad  wistfulness  of 
her  brows  might  have  told  another  sort  of  listener  that 
this  brief  chronicle  was  the  outline  of  her  story  of  life. 
To  Dove,  waiting  to  get  her  report  of  the  visit  as  it 
touched  him,  it  had  no  extreme  significance.  But  he  was 
not  going  to  be  unkind  to  her,  mysterious  as  this  new 
mood  was.  He  was  never  that,  except  by  the  indirection 
of  things  not  done. 

"  And  I  didn't  know  his  name,"  she  said,  in  a  musing 
wonder,  as  if  now  talking  to  herself.  "  Wasn't  that 
strange,  father?  We  neither  of  us  told  our  names.  And 
when  he  saw  the  other  plane  coming  he  said  to  me, 
'  Wait  for  me.  I'll  come  back.'  " 

Dove  did  look  at  her  now  for  an  instant,  keenly.  It 
was  dawning  on  him  that  this  meant  a  great  deal  to  her. 

"And  I  see  now,"  she  said,  with  a  certain  sad  trium 
phant  satisfaction,  "  why  he  didn't  come.  He  was  or 
dered  away  —  to  France.  And  he  was  killed.  And  he's 
their  son." 

But  though  her  father  had,  through  that  chink  of  reve 
lation,  caught  an  instant's  understanding  of  her  mood, 
he  had  had  enough  of  this  purposeless  digression. 

"  Come,  come,"  he  said,  kindly  but  decisively,  "  don't 
you  see  I'm  waiting  for  you  to  tell  me  about  going  there 
and  what  happened?  " 

She  was  recalled.  With  a  little  start  she  came  to  her 
self,  seemed  to  fold  away  the  mourning  garb  of  her  re- 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS          39 

membrance,  and  settled  herself  to  tell  him  what  he 
wanted  to  hear.  And  now  she  was  a  different  Andrea. 
It  was  all  with  that  fictitious  brightness  the  young  so  often 
adopt  to  cheer  the  old.  The  tone  of  it,  the  monotonous 
embellishment,  was  a  fairy  story,  a  "  once  upon  a  time." 

"  Well,"  she  said,  "  I  went  to  the  house,  and  Mrs.  Har 
vey  saw  me.  It  was  in  a  pretty  room  and  a  nice  young 
old  lady  sat  by  the  fire." 

But  Dove  was  burningly  impatient. 

"  I  don't  care  anything  about  the  room,"  he  said. 
"  How  did  you  begin?  " 

"  I  don't  know." 

Then,  as  he  raised  his  hand  and  brought  it  down  on  the 
table  in  exasperation  at  her  slowness  and  stupidity,  she 
gathered  herself  to  tell  it  better  and  put  out  her  hand  to 
lay  it  on  his,  trembling  from  the  blow. 

"  Oh,  but  I  told  her,  dear.  I  told  her  you'd  discovered 
olympium,  and  that  you'd  got  flashes,  and  she  sent  for  her 
husband  to  come  in  and  he  asked  me  questions  —  " 

"  What  sort  of  man  is  Peter  Harvey?  "  he  interrupted, 
the  burning  eyes  upon  her. 

She  hesitated,  thinking. 

"  Kind,"  she  said,  "  oh,  very  kind.    I  loved  him,  father." 

"  What  sort  of  questions?  "  he  pursued. 

"  Whether  you  were  in  touch  with  other  scientists." 

He  gave  a  little  cry  of  extreme  repugnance. 

"  I  told  him  so,  daddy,"  she  said  eagerly.  "  I  said 
you'd  got  to  work  it  out  alone." 

"  Well?  well?  "  he  prompted.  "  What's  the  upshot  of 
it?  What  will  he  do?  " 

"  He's  coming  here,"  she  said,  watching  his  face  in  the 
triumphant  certainty  that  now  he  would  be  pleased. 

She  never  went  so  far  as  to  think  he  might  praise  her. 
The  past  had  dulled  that  expectation  out  of  her. 


40  THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

"  Here?  "  he  cried  incredulously. 

"  Yes,"  she  nodded  at  him,  smiling  as  if  the  climax  of 
the  fairy  tale  had  come.  "  To-morrow." 

"  But,"  he  said,  in  mounting  uneasiness,  "  I  can't  have 
those  people  here." 

The  poverty  of  the  place  seemed  to  account  for  this. 

"  They  know  we're  poor,"  she  reminded  him. 
"  That's  what  I  told  them.  That's  the  point.  Do  they 
think  we'd  ask  them  for  money  if  we  had  it  ourselves, 
even  for  a  great  splendid  thing  like  this?  " 

"  But  what  do  they  want?  "  he  insisted.  "  What  do 
they  expect  to  get?  " 

"  Why,"  said  she,  "  I  told  them  you'd  had  flashes  that 
semed  to  be  from  something  outside  our  atmosphere. 
They  want  to  see  them,  don't  you  think?  They  want  to 
see  you  and  Mr.  Harvey  wants  to  hear  you  talk  about  it." 

He  turned  his  chair  about  so  that  he  faced  the  table, 
and  bent  his  head  in  his  palms.  He  was  infinitely  pa 
thetic  so,  the  trouble  of  his  face  hidden  behind  the  be 
seeching  eloquence  of  those  frail  hands.  She  rose  from 
her  seat,  in  sudden  passionate  sympathy  for  him,  and 
came  round  and  touched  his  shoulder  gently. 

"  0  daddy,"  she  said,  daring  no  more  than  this.  "  O 
daddy!" 

But  at  her  voice  he  pushed  his  chair  back,  and  hurried, 
bent  and  trembling,  to  his  room,  went  in  and  shut  the 
door.  She  stood  a  moment  looking  after  him,  painfully 
wondering  whether  her  message  which  seemed  to  her  all 
hope  was  in  some  mysterious  way  disconcerting  to  him, 
or  whether  he  was  actually  glad  and  could  not  bear  it. 
She  sat  down  again  at  the  table  and  then,  her  own  emo 
tions  imperiously  constraining  her,  put  her  elbows  on 
the  table,  buried  her  face  in  her  hands  and  in  that  soli 
tude  of  posture  gave  herself  over  to  the  swift  tide  of  re- 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  41 

membrance.  It  had  promised  joy  and  it  now  meant  grief. 
She  often  had  these  periods,  not  of  actual  solitude,  since 
her  father  might  call  upon  her  at  any  instant  for  some 
service,  but  solitude  of  the  soul.  Often  and  often  she  sat 
down  to  put  her  hands  before  her  eyes,  withdraw  into  her 
self  and  retrace  every  step  in  what  she  knew  to  be  her 
love  story.  It  seemed  to  her  the  most  extraordinary 
story  a  girl  ever  had,  like  the  lover  himself,  straight  out 
of  heaven.  Even  to  her  it  would  have  been  incredible  ex 
cept  that  in  the  upheaval  of  the  world  since  1914  strange 
things  had  come  to  pass.  The  earth  seemed  to  have  been 
rent  not  only  on  its  surface  but  from  the  centre.  Mon 
strous  deeds  had  sprung  from  the  underworld,  noisome, 
fetid  deeds  cast  up  from  the  dregs  of  life  hidden  from 
sight  and  hearing  in  calmer  times.  And  strange  seeds 
were  ripened,  borne  on  the  air  from  mysterious  sources, 
seeds  of  self-sacrifice,  of  a  wild  hope  and  a  quickly  ger 
minated  love.  She  had  been,  as  she  said,  taking  the  long 
walk  to  the  beach  as  free  from  thought  of  man  as  any 
nymph  of  story,  and  he  had  come  down  from  the  air, 
again  like  legend,  one  of  the  gods  made  manifest.  He 
had  not  fallen  like  Icarus,  though  indeed  his  magic  char 
iot  had  perversely  failed  him.  And  when  he  saw  her  he 
forgot  instantly  that  he  had  to  repair  damage  and  get 
away  again,  and  they  looked  their  hunger  for  each  other 
and  talked  desperately  —  about  nothing,  actually  noth 
ing,  as  she  remembered  —  and  the  other  plane  came 
down,  she  left  him  and  he  was  gone.  Yet  his  coming  had 
remoulded  her,  mind  and  soul.  It  was  plainly  love,  love 
at  a  glance.  She  had  seen  men  enough  to  know  he  was 
different,  of  an  impetuous  clarity  of  thought  and  speech, 
an  unworldly  belief  in  the  world  as  immortally  young, 
not  falteringly  old,  and  a  trust  in  it  —  such  a  dear  and 
foolish  trust,  her  own  dreary  experience  told  her,  in  its 


42          THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

playing  fair.  They  were  man  and  girl  as  we  read  about 
them  in  stories  and  poems  and  never  dream  of  seeing 
them  in  the  flesh.  If  we  did,  what  should  we  do  with 
them,  fitting  none  of  our  tailor-made  conventions?  But 
there  they  were,  he  and  she,  girl  and  boy,  immortal  youth 
pledged  instantly  to  immortal  love.  Did  they  say  all 
this?  No,  not  any  of  it;  but  she  was  as  sure  they  had 
bound  themselves  by  the  great  contract  as  if  they  had 
kissed  and  plighted  troth.  Such  things  do  happen. 
There  is  a  language  of  the  heart  that  does  not,  in  the 
first  surprise  of  meeting,  need  the  substantiation  of  the 
tongue.  She  did  not  know  his  name  or  the  place  where  he 
belonged,  and  when  he  failed  to  return  she  only  made  up 
epic  stories  of  the  needs  that  kept  him.  She  would  not 
let  herself  mourn.  The  sight  of  him  was  denied  her,  but 
the  untarnished  image  of  him  lived  in  her  heart,  and  she 
gloried  in  her  own  faithfulness,  which  was  her  part  of  the 
epic  deeds.  And  now  the  dark  wings  she  had  never  let 
herself  glance  up  at,  though  the  shadow  of  them  had 
many  times  threatened  to  engulf  her,  had  descended. 
He  was  dead. 


THE  next  day  Andrea  rose  early  and  did  anxious  tasks 
about  the  living  room  before  her  father  was  astir.  To 
the  Harveys  her  little  house  would  be  queer  enough,  and 
she  wanted  it  to  offer  a  shining  face.  Her  father,  too,  was 
early.  When  he  came  out,  his  breakfast  of  toast  and 
coffee  was  quickly  ready,  and  while  he  ate,  in  the  per 
functory  way  he  had,  she  sat  opposite  him  and  ventured 
on  the  ground  she  knew  he  would  avoid. 

"Daddy,  you  know  they're  coming  here  this  fore 
noon." 

He  nodded,  breaking  his  toast  and  sipping  his  coffee  as, 
she  often  had  occasion  to  think,  an  actor  on  the  stage  who, 
with  eating  set  down  in  his  part,  gets  it  over  in  a  frag 
mentary  way. 

"And,"  she  went  on,  "they'll  want  to  go  into  your 
room." 

He  set  down  his  cup  and  looked  at  her  in  a  threatening 
displeasure,  as  if  she  alone  were  responsible  for  that  in 
cursion. 

"  So,"  she  continued,  disregarding  the  look,  as  she  often 
had  to  ignore  his  prohibitions,  seldom  comprehensible  but 
always  inseparable  from  his  dearness  to  her,  "  I  shall 
want  to  have  it  nice.  I  won't  do  much:  make  your  bed, 
sweep  a  little,  dust.  Why  don't  I  do  it  now?  " 

She  rose,  but  he  stretched  a  detaining  hand. 

"  They're  not,"  he  said,  "  going  into  my  room." 

"But,  daddy,"  she  reminded  him,  "I've  told  them 

43 


44          THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

you're  getting  calls.  They'll  want  to  go  and  have  it  ex 
plained  to  them.  Mr.  Harvey  will.  That's  why  he's 
coming,  you  know." 

He  took  up  his  coffee  cup  and  tossed  the  last  of  its  con 
tents  down  his  throat.    Then  he  rose. 

"  Nobody  is  going  into  that  room,"  he  said  definitively, 
"  nobody." 

"  But  daddy,  I  as  much  as  promised  them  you'd  show 
them,  you'd  demonstrate.  Is  that  what  you'd  call  it?  " 

"  Then  you'd  no  right  to.  Why,  my  experiments  —  " 
he  paused  as  if  the  scope  of  them  made  it  impossible  for 
him  to  include  it  in  speech  she  could  understand  —  "  my 
experiments  won't  admit  of  people  crowding  in  there, 
peering,  handling  —  " 

"  Oh,  they  wouldn't  handle,"  she  assured  him,  with  an 
eager  softness.  "  Mr.  Harvey's  not  that  kind.  He  knows 
he's  ignorant  about  scientific  things.  He'd  own  it.  And 
as  for  Mrs.  Harvey,  you  don't  have  to  convince  her. 
She  believes  already." 

In  that  moment  of  even  so  slightly  interpreting  the 
Harveys,  an  undercurrent  of  thought  was  bidding  her 
remember  how  strange  it  was,  how  marvelous  beyond 
measure,  that  they  should  be  father  and  mother  of  the 
vanished  strength  and  beauty  she  had  called  her  lover 
and  that  her  lover  should  be  dead. 

"  Then  let  her  prove  it,"  Andrew  Dove  cried  triumph 
antly.  "If  she  believes,  all  she's  got  to  do  is  to  write 
me  a  cheque  as  she  did  for  psychical  research." 

Andrea  shook  her  head.  She  went  a  little  nearer  his 
room  with  a  soft  obstinacy  that  surprised  her  as  it  ir 
ritated  him. 

"  Only  to  dust,"  she  said  persuasively,  "  and  make  your 
bed." 

But  he  passed  her,  went  in  and  shut  the  door.    Andrea, 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS          45 

rebuffed  and  momentarily  angry  over  the  obstinacy  that 
threatened  to  defeat  his  ends,  cleared  away  his  breakfast 
and  again  ran  over  the  dustless  order  of  the  room.  A 
little  after  ten,  when  she  could  make  no  further  pretence 
at  a  regulated  scene  setting  and  took  up  the  knitting  that 
often  steadied  her  perturbed  mind,  she  heard  a  car  and, 
as  she  reached  the  door,  their  knock.  There  they  were, 
a  little  disconcerting  to  her  now  in  their  out-door  gear. 
They  looked,  in  every  detail,  so  moneyed  that  for  the 
moment  she  forgot  their  kind  faces  and  wished  the  old 
lady  had  come  with  them,  she  was  so  steadying.  Her 
cards,  you  saw,  were  on  the  table.  You  knew  she  would, 
on  exigent  occasion,  say  the  most  drastic  thing  there  was 
to  be  said  and  relieve  you  of  apprehension  of  a  worse  to 
come.  She  was  just,  too,  she  was  kind.  There  was  no 
harm  in  that  old  lady,  only  a  long  experience  of  the  world 
and  a  settled  desire  to  be  square  in  it,  even  if  that  in 
volved  being  also  a  little  trying. 

But  Andrea,  though  she  was  impressed,  lacked  no  out 
ward  composure.  She  asked  them  in  and  was  briefly  in 
terested  to  see  the  difference  in  the  way  they  took  the 
quaint  bareness  of  the  place.  Isabel  Harvey  was  frankly 
interested  and  delighted,  as  one  has  every  right  to  be  de 
lighted  with  the  queernesses  of  a  spot  where  one  isn't 
condemned  to  live;  but  her  husband  apparently  noticed 
no  difference  between  this  and  any  conventional  entrance 
and  reception  room.  Yet  Andrea  was  sure  he  did  notice. 
He  was  sensitive  enough,  she  knew,  for  the  place  to  strike 
him  to  the  bone,  to  give  him  an  inward  shiver  at  its  unre 
lieved  poverty  and  discomfort,  and  a  pity  that  must  hurt 
for  her  who  had  to  deal  with  it  and  make  it  as  little  as 
possible  like  the  waste  it  was.  But  he  apparently  saw 
nothing.  He  smiled  upon  her,  courteously  but  not  too 
warmly  as  indicating  any  special  patronage  and,  after  his 


46          THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

wife  was  seated,  took  the  chair  Andrea,  in  her  scene  set 
ting,  had  placed  near  by.  And  now  Andrea  knew  she  had 
before  her  one  of  the  hardest  tasks  of  her  strange  life. 
She  had  to  tell  him  that  her  father,  dishevelled  and  wan 
from  a  night's  vigil  of  work,  had  shut  himself  up  in  the 
room  he  called  his  laboratory,  and  that  he  refused  to  let 
them  cross  the  threshold  of  that  room  where  the  demon 
stration  for  which  he  begged  their  money  could  alone 
take  place.  But  before  she  had  uttered  a  word  of  the 
dreaded  explanation,  her  father  himself  gave  her  a  sur 
prise  more  complete  than  any  presentation  of  his  previous 
attitude  could  have  given  them.  The  laboratory  door 
opened  and  he  came  out,  shaven,  composed,  his  thread 
bare  clothes  worn  with  such  dignity  that  they  seemed  only 
to  emphasise  his  deserts  and  the  pity  of  it  that  he  should 
be  indebted  to  their  forlorn  use.  He  advanced  toward 
the  Harveys  with  a  welcoming  smile,  a  sweetness  of  ex 
pression  indeed  that  Andrea  had  not  seen  for  so  long  that 
she  caught  her  breath  at  the  memories  it  awoke.  This 
was  her  father,  as  she  and  her  mother  had  known  him, 
and  she  saw,  with  a  pang  of  terror  lest  he  should  be  dis 
appointed,  how  desperately  he  was  clinging  to  the  hope 
that  the  Harveys  might  do  something  to  forward  his  dear 
desires.  It  was  so  desperate,  this  hope,  that  it  enabled 
him  to  strike  deep  down  into  the  depths  of  his  forgotten 
self  and  drag  up  every  resource  he  had  to  charm  as  well 
as  to  persuade.  Peter  Harvey  got  up  to  meet  him  and 
Andrea  had  time  to  see,  as  they  shook  hands,  that  her 
father's  look  was  piteous  to  those  discerning  eyes.  Mrs. 
Harvey,  too,  shook  hands  with  him,  with  a  murmurous 
interest  and  sympathy.  She  was  making  little  kind 
noises  in  her  throat  and,  though  they  might  be  promising 
she  was  ready  to  write  the  cheque  at  once,  Andrea  ceased 
thinking  of  her.  The  contest,  if  contest  it  could  be  called, 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS          47 

was,  she  felt,  to  be  between  her  father  and  Mr.  Harvey. 
Even  she  herself  was  not  likely  to  be  needed.  It 
was  all  in  her  father's  hands,  and  his  present  fitness  of 
aspect  seemed  to  imply  that  the  hands  were  capable. 
Mr.  Dove  motioned  Harvey  to  sit,  but  himself  remained 
standing. 

"  You'll  excuse  me,  won't  you,"  he  said,  "  if  I  stand? 
I  get  so  nervous  over  this  thing  I  have  to  walk  about  when 
I'm  talking  it  over.  But  please  sit.  Please  be  comfort 
able.  You'll  want  to  question  me.  Do  so.  Ask  any 
thing  you  like.  I'll  tell  you  —  if  I  can." 

And  now  Andrea  was  even  a  more  absorbed  spectator 
than  either  of  the  others.  She  had  to  go  painfully  back 
again  —  and  it  seemed  very  far  to  go  —  to  the  days  when 
her  father  entertained  men  of  a  dignified  class  of  mind  and 
manner  and  could  give  and  take  in  the  conversational 
exchange  with  an  assured  self-possession.  And  she  real 
ised  that,  alone  with  him  all  these  last  months,  she  had 
allowed  herself  to  see  him  at  the  standard  of  his  weak 
ness.  She  had  protected,  served  and  shielded  him.  She 
had  not  admired  and  wondered  at  him  as  she  did  now. 
She  leaned  back  in  her  chair  as  if  withdrawing  definitely 
from  the  interview,  but  she  could  not  deny  herself  the 
pleasure  of  giving  Peter  Harvey  one  little  triumphing  look. 
"  You  see,"  the  look  said,  "  I  didn't  tell  you  anything 
really.  I  couldn't,  for  I  didn't  know  myself  how  splendid 
he  was  going  to  be."  Mr.  Dove  was  gazing  straight  into 
Harvey's  face  with  an  unswerving  directness  that  might 
have  indicated  he  held  himself  tense  by  great  effort.  His 
hands,  one  at  his  side,  one  behind  him,  were  trembling. 
That  he  could  not  govern,  and  he  kept  them  closed.  And 
sure  as  Andrea  was  that  the  duel  of  challenge  and  proof 
was  between  the  two  men,  it  was  Mrs.  Harvey  who  began. 

"  Mr.  Dove,"  she  said,  with  a  certain  direct  acceptance 


48  THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

of  him  and  his  power  which,  though  quieting,  was  absurd 
in  advance  of  the  first  step  they  were  yet  to  take,  "  do 
you  think  you  could  do  something  for  us?  Don't  you 
think  you  could  get  me  a  message  from  my  son?  " 

And  her  poor  lip  quivered  so  that  Andrea  made  a  little 
involuntary  movement  toward  her  and  then  sank  back. 

"  Isabel!  "  her  husband  said,  in  an  undertone. 

Andrea  thought,  in  sharp  pity  for  him,  that  he  almost 
moaned  it,  he  was  so  sure  his  wife  would  upset  all  the  logic 
of  the  event  by  saying  the  intemperate  thing. 

"  But  he  can,"  Isabel  argued,  turning  to  her  husband  in 
a  gentle  reproach  that  he  could  deny  her  for  a  moment. 
"  Your  daughter  said  so,  Mr.  Dove.  She  said  you'd  got 
messages." 

Andrew  Dove  did  not  answer  her.  He  was  interrogat 
ing  her  husband: 

"You  seem  to  object?" 

"  I  do  object,"  said  Harvey,  as  if  it  hurt  him  to  say  it. 
"  My  wife  is  head  over  ears  in  automatic  writing.  But  I 
don't  mean  to  see  her  drown.  I'm  the  life  preserver. 
That's  why  I'm  here  to-day." 

Mr.  Dove's  acute  glance  hardened  somewhat.  "  Then," 
it  seemed  to  comment,  "  you're  here  in  her  interests,  not  in 
mine."  But  Isabel  was  speaking,  with  a  piteous  persua 
siveness. 

"  You  see,  Mr.  Dove,  it's  my  son." 

"  I  know,"  said  Dove,  with  a  brevity  that  sounded  curt. 
Andrea  began  to  see  how  it  was  bruising  him  to  meet  these 
people  after  the  manner  of  their  own  speech.  "  The  avi 
ator." 

"  Yes.  And  we  do  so  want  to  get  word  from  him.  We 
want  it  terribly." 

"  Mrs.  Harvey  wants  it,"  said  Harvey,  in  a  tone  that 
sounded  like  crisp  rebuttal  of  the  whole  thing. 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  49 

"  Don't  you?  "  Dove  asked  him,  as  crisply. 

"  Not  that  way."  He  declared  it  obstinately  as  if  he 
knew  Isabel  was  going  to  be  hurt  by  it  and  yet  it  had  to 
be.  "  I  hate  the  whole  thing.  If  my  son  is  trying  to 
communicate  with  me,  is  he  going  to  write  poppycock 
through  my  wife's  secretary,  a  woman  I  wouldn't  trust 
round  the  corner?  " 

"  But  if  he  is  trying,"  put  in  Isabel,  looking  so  soft,  so 
beseeching,  that  it  was  easy  to  see  how  she  could  persuade 
her  husband,  sceptical  though  he  was,  to  write  cheques  for 
indeterminate  ends,  "  oughtn't  we  to  accept  it,  whatever 
way  it  comes?  Don't  you  think  so,  Mr.  Dove?  " 

Dove  stood  looking  down  at  his  shabbily  shod  feet  as 
if  they  alone  held  the  solution  for  him. 

"  I  can  tell  you,"  he  said  slowly,  "  how  the  thing  pre 
sents  itself  to  me.  I  know  there's  humbuggery.  Wait," 
he  added.  Isabel  was  about  to  speak,  and  he  put  up 
his  hand.  "  The  millions  of  dead  —  they've  gone  some 
where,  haven't  they?  "  He  was  interrogating  Harvey, 
who  gave  a  nod  in  answer.  "  They've  gone  —  some 
where,"  Dove  repeated.  "  But  it's  a  ramshackle  universe. 
We  haven't  got  it  in  order  yet  —  " 

"  God  —  "  interrupted  Mrs.  Harvey  timidly,  as  if  the 
one  word  were  sufficient ;  but  he  did  not  even  hear  her. 

"  We  haven't  got  it  in  order.  And  there  are  the  mem 
ories  of  the  dead.  We're  tangled  up  in  'em,  and  they 
hoodwink  us  into  accepting  all  sorts  of  deviltries.  Yes, 
it's  deviltry.  But  there's  one  thing  that  will  do  the  trick. 
Science.  Invention.  The  mind  of  man.  Would  you 
have  believed  in  wireless  twenty-five  years  ago?  The 
time  is  coming  when  you'll  call  the  stars  as  easily  as  you 
call  England." 

"  How  long  have  you  believed  that?  "  asked  Harvey. 

Dove  paused,  considering. 


50  THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

"  Perhaps,"  he  said,  "  ever  since  I  believed  in  wireltss. 
Certainly  ever  since  I  discovered  olympium." 

"  You  are  perhaps,"  said  Harvey,  "  using  wireless  in 
illustration  only.  But  you  are  also  using  radium  as  a 
means  of  describing  your  olympium.  Now  you  don't 
mean  wireless  has  anything  to  do  with  radium?  " 

"  No,"  said  Dove,  with  a  carelessness  almost  contemp 
tuous.  "  I  don't  mean  that." 

"  But  you  do  say  your  olympium  has  something  to  do 
with  this  interplanetary  wireless  of  yours.  And  yet  your 
olympium  is  of  the  nature  of  radium.  I'm  only  blunder 
ing  along  in  this,  you  see.  I  don't  know  whether  I  make 
myself  plain." 

"  Yes,"  said  Dove,  with  a  tolerance  so  condescending 
that  Andrea  bent  slightly  toward  him  and  seemed  about 
to  speak.  "  You  make  yourself  plain  enough.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  shouldn't  be  able  to  make  myself  plain  to 
you.  You  wouldn't  understand." 

Peter  Harvey  smiled  and  turned  involuntarily  to  his 
wife.  He  wondered  if  this  reminded  her  of  anything,  if 
she  remembered  how  many  questions  were  answered  in 
her  precious  automatic  writing:  "  Not  in  your  sense. 
You  wouldn't  understand."  But  she  was  impervious  to 
the  implication  and  he  turned  back  to  Dove.  The  man 
looked  innocent  enough  and  Harvey  doubted  whether  he 
had  meant  to  be  offensive.  His  eyes  were  still  fixed  upon 
his  shabby  shoes.  Andrew  drew  a  quick  breath,  thinking 
father  would  indeed  have  to  make  good,  to  satisfy  that 
glance  of  Harvey's,  as  keen  as  it  was  temperate. 

"  In  one  word,"  Harvey  said  quietly,  "  have  you  got 
messages?  " 

Dove  hesitated.  Then  he  lifted  his  eyes  and  answered 
boldly: 

"  Yes." 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS  51 

The  keen  eyes  did  not  waver  from  his  face. 

"  Messages,"  repeated  Harvey,  "  from  some  one  you 
knew,  it  is  to  be  presumed." 

"  I  can't  say,"  answered  Dove,  "  whether  they're  from 
some  one  I  know  or  not.  And  the  only  way  I  can  find 
out  is  to  put  on  more  power." 

"  Why  don't  you  do  it  then?  " 

"That's  precisely  it,"  said  Dove  impatiently  and  yet 
with  a  sort  of  triumph,  as  if  now  they  had  run  the  race  of 
conjecture  and  were  at  the  goal  where  he  had  meant  to 
meet  them.  "  We're  going  round  in  a  circle.  I  can't  get 
more  olympium  because  I  can't  get  money." 

"  Ah !  "  said  Harvey  softly.    "  Money." 

Andrea,  who  was  going  along  step  by  step  with  him, 
guessing  out  his  reaction  to  her  father's  words,  thought 
the  repetition  meant,  "  It's  always  money  they  want. 
Money!  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Dove  violently.  "  To  set  my  retorts  go 
ing.  To  make  more  olympium." 

Mrs.  Harvey  breathed  her  husband's  name.  He  knew 
what  that  half-persuasive,  half-mandatory  "Peter!" 
meant.  But  now  he  had  Dove  upon  olympium, 
he  meant  to  keep  him  there  for  a  practical  interval. 

"  Tell  us,"  he  said,  "  all  you  can  about  your  discovery." 

Dove  half  closed  his  eyes  and  began  reciting  what  he 
seemed  to  see  inwardly,  reading  from  a  page. 

"  I'll  tell  you,"  he  said,  "  some  of  the  properties  of 
olympium.  Briefly,  that  is:  if  I  went  into  it  more  ex 
haustively  you  wouldn't  understand.  And  when  it  comes 
to  that,  I  don't  myself.  But  these  are  some  of  the  things 
it  can  do.  If  I  take  a  vacuum  vessel  of  liquid  air  and 
drop  into  it  a  small  glass  tube  containing  a  quarter 
gramme  of  olympium,  the  liquid  air  will  boil.  But  you 
can't  detect  the  slightest  loss  of  weight  in  the  olympium 
that  has  been  boiling  it." 


52  THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

"  Do  you  mean,"  said  Harvey,  "  it  does  the  stunts  of 
radium?  " 

"  Practically  every  one.  It  has  a  high  degree  of  radio 
activity.  It  ionizes  the  air." 

Harvey  shook  his  head. 

"  Got  me  there,"  said  he. 

Andrea,  before  she  could  stop  herself,  rushed  in. 

"  My  father  means  it  makes  the  air  a  conductor  of 
electricity." 

But  Dove  ignored  her  and  went  on,  evidently  not  pro 
posing  to  explain  in  any  amplitude  adapted  to  the  lay 
mind. 

"  I  have  made  something  that  you  might  call  a  sort  of 
mechanical  toy.  It  has  a  plate  of  zinc  sulphide,  and  that, 
when  I  bring  olympium  near  it,  gives  off  flashes.  And 
those  flashes  are  in  the  Morse  code." 

"  The  devil !  "  said  Harvey,  his  mind  trying  to  effect 
the  conjunction  Dove  was  evidently  implying:  a  celestial 
telegraphy  and  the  Morse  code.  "  How  do  you  account 
for  that?  " 

"  The  Morse  code,"  said  Dove,  "  would  be  the  logical 
result  of  some  one  who  had  at  one  time  lived  on  this 
earth  trying  to  communicate  with  it  again." 

"  Peter !  "  said  Isabel.  Her  hands  were  gripped  on  each 
other,  and  he  knew  what  his  name,  in  that  low  imploring, 
meant.  "  Write  a  cheque,"  it  meant,  "  and  don't  lose 
time  over  this  sluggish  coil  of  testimony." 

"Yes,  dear,  yes,"  he  soothed  her,  and  then,  to  Dove: 
"  Go  on." 

"  I  leave  it  to  you,"  said  Dove.  "  If  a  spirit,  we'll  say 
—  shall  we  say  spirit?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,"  breathed  Isabel. 

"Yes,  if  you  like,"  said  her  husband,  with  an  air  of 
accepting  anything  in  the  way  of  a  theorem  to  be  demon- 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS  53 

strated.  "  It's  immaterial.  That's  not  a  pun."  For  Isa 
bel  had  given  a  little  sound  of  shocked  dissent.  "  Lord, 
dear,  no!  " 

"  A  spirit,"  said  Dove,  "  that  left  this  earth  after  teleg 
raphy  came  into  use,  would  know  we  had  the  Morse  code. 
What  is  more  logical  than  for  the  spirit  who  knew  the 
code  on  earth  to  remember  it?  That  is,  if  memory  per 
sists.  What  is  more  logical  than  for  them — the  scien 
tific  minds,  still  if  their  memory  persists  —  to  use  the  code 
they  know  we  are  accustomed  to?  " 

"  What  about  Socrates,  for  instance?  "  Harvey  offered, 
with  the  air  of  himself  finding  it  rather  feeble.  "  Or 
William  Shakespeare?  They  never  used  the  Morse 
code." 

"  I  can  only  say,"  returned  Dove,  with  the  dignity 
suited  to  a  trifling  interruption,  "  one  has  to  start  some 
where.  I  start  with  the  Morse  code." 

"  Peter,"  said  Mrs.  Harvey,  bringing  up  her  argument 
of  a  soft  voice  and  glance,  "  Mr.  Dove  must  go  on  with 
his  investigations." 

"Yes,  dear,"  said  Harvey.  "But  before  I  can  act  I 
must  know  more  about  it." 

"  But  we  can  know,"  she  insisted.  "  Can't  we  know, 
Mr.  Dove?  You  can  prove  it.  Why  not  bring  your  — 
what  is  it  you  bring  near  the  olympium?  " 

"  Zinc  sulphide,  madam,"  said  Dove. 

"  Yes.  And  you  could  let  us  see  the  flashes.  My  hus 
band  isn't  a  scientific  man,  but  I'm  sure  if  you  explained 
it,  he'd  understand  something." 

Dove  had  had  from  the  first  an  air  of  considering  her 
negligible,  even  when  she  made  it  most  apparent  that  she 
was  eager  to  mulct  her  husband  of  a  cheque.  Now  he  ad 
dressed  himself  to  Harvey. 

"  I  have  never  been  able  to  get  the  slightest  sign  with 


54          THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

anything  less  than  a  quarter  gramme.  And  even  then  I 
couldn't  get  an  extended  message." 

"  Don't  you  see,"  cried  Isabel,  "  it's  money  he  needs? 
That's  all.  If  you  knew  you  could  get  a  message  from 
Philip,  what  wouldn't  you  pay  for  it?  " 

"  What,  indeed,"  said  Harvey  sadly,  "  if  we  could  I  " 

"  But  the  chance,"  she  urged.  "  Aren't  we  willing  to 
pay  for  the  chance?  " 

Harvey  turned  to  Dove,  who  stood  watching  them  both, 
almost  as  keen-eyed  now  as  he. 

"  Where,"  he  asked,  "  is  your  olympium?  " 

"  There  in  that  room." 

He  pointed  to  his  laboratory. 

"  Let's  see  it." 

"  Mr.  Harvey,  it  wouldn't  mean  anything  to  you." 

"  You  know,"  said  Harvey  bluntly,  "  I  can't  put  money 
on  a  dark  horse.  At  least,  willingly:  sometimes  I've  had 
to,"  he  added,  his  mind  reverting  to  the  sops  he  had  thrown 
Isabel's  devouring  beast  of  credulity. 

"  But  a  chance,"  she  was  urging.    "A  chance!  " 

"  The  trouble  is,"  said  Harvey  frankly,  "  —  one  trouble 
—  it's  distasteful  to  me.  Sorry,  Mr.  Dove,  but  it  is  dis 
tasteful." 

"  What,"  said  Dove,  "  can  I  do  to  meet  you?  " 

"  For  one  thing,  let  me  see  your  olympium,  touch  it, 
handle  it." 

"  And  get  a  hole  burnt  in  you?  "  Dove  pulled  up  his 
sleeve  and  showed  his  wrist.  "  See  there  —  and  there. 
I'm  as  careful  as  any  man  in  my  profession,  but  I'm  afraid 
of  it.  The  thing  is  caustic  as  hell  fire." 

"  Let  me  go  into  that  room." 

"  That  is  my  laboratory." 

"  Never  mind.  It  isn't  the  black  art,  is  it,  divination 
and  all  that?  Can't  you  let  me  stand  in  the  doorway  and 
see  the  thing  work?  " 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS          55 

"  You'd  laugh  at  me.  The  whole  business  is  so  primi 
tive,  just  as  I  told  you,  a  mere  mechanical  toy.  And  the 
thing  it  can  do  —  that  is  one  of  the  surprises  that  are  al 
ways  happening  in  science." 

"  Let  me  see  your  retorts." 

"  They  are  not  here." 

"Pardon  me.  You  said  you'd  found  this  element. 
You  spoke  of  retorts." 

Dove  seemed  to  shrivel  and  fade  in  this  air  of  incredu 
lity.  It  was  to  his  daughter  he  turned,  and  her  heart 
ached  for  him. 

"  Andrea,"  he  said,  "  he  doesn't  believe  me.    Tell  him." 

"I  have  told  him,"  she  said,  with  some  indignation. 
"  I  did  tell  you,"  she  insisted,  to  Harvey.  "  I  told  you 
we  lived  on  Long  Island.  We  had  our  house  then.  It 
was  there  my  father  discovered  olympium.  He  mort 
gaged  the  house  and  land  to  buy  stock  in  the  market  —  " 

"  Ah !  "  interrupted  Harvey,  "  speculated." 

"  It  was  a  sure  thing,"  said  Dove  uneasily. 

He  had  ceased  governing  the  situation,  Andrea  saw. 

"  Yes,"  said  Harvey  smiling,  though  compassionately. 
"  It  always  is." 

"  I  was  cleaned  out,"  said  Dove  irritably.  "  But  I'd 
made  my  quarter  gramme  of  olympium." 

"  Well,"  said  Harvey,  after  a  pause,  "  well !  "  This  was 
as  if  he  abandoned  the  steps  that  led  to  the  present  mo 
ment  and  was  ready  to  deal  with  the  moment  itself,  take 
it  on  its  own  nterit  as  an  isolated  argument  without  gene 
sis  or  conclusion.  "  You've  got  your  olympium.  That 
is,  you've  a  quarter  gramme.  Now  turn  on  your  power, 
set  your  mechanical  toy  going  and  let  us  see  if  you  get 
a  flash." 

Isabel  put  the  tips  of  her  small  gloved  hands  together 
in  an  ingenuous  appeal. 


56          THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Dove,"  she  implored,  "  if  it's  not  too  much 
to  ask.  They  will  help  us." 

"  They?  "  repeated  Dove,  staring. 

"  Those  that  have  passed  over.  My  son,"  she  said. 
"  He  must  know.  I  have  the  strongest  evidence  that  he 
is  keeping  in  touch  with  us  all  the  time.  Peter,  you  know 
he'll  help." 

Again  Harvey  gave  the  little  sound  that,  to  Andrea, 
was  like  a  lament  over  his  wife's  incorrigible  belief;  but 
either  Isabel's  plea  or  the  decision  he  had  come  to  deter 
mined  Dove  and  he  said,  in  a  firmer  tone  than  he  had 
used: 

"  Will  you  stay  here?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Harvey,  but  he  and  his  wife  involuntarily 
rose  from  their  chairs. 

"I  am  going  into  that  room,"  said  Dove,  pointing. 
"  It  is,  as  I  told  you,  my  laboratory.  You  must  not  fol 
low  me." 

"  Is  the  room  dark?  "  inquired  Harvey. 

"  Darker  than  this.  You  will  have  no  difficulty  in  see 
ing  the  flashes  from  where  you  stand." 

"  Is  there  a  sound?  " 

"  Yes,  there  is  a  sound  similar  to  wireless.  It  accom 
panies  the  flashes." 

"  Are  the  sounds  in  the  nature  of  a  code?  " 

"  Yes,  dots  and  dashes.  If  you  can't  read  them  I  will 
write  them  out  for  you,  and  you  can  take  them  away  to  be 
verified." 

Dove  crossed  the  room  to  the  laboratory  door,  and 
with  so  light  a  step  that  Andrea  gazed  after  him  in  won 
der.  She  seemed  to  be  looking  on  at  the  rejuvenation  of 
what  had,  only  a  couple  of  hours  before,  been  life  failing 
to  its  close.  He  entered,  leaving  the  door  open  behind 
him,  and  she  saw  that  he  must  have  pulled  down  the 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS          57 

shade  at  the  one  window,  for  the  room  was  dark.  There 
they  stood,  she  and  the  Harveys,  and  so  tense  was  their 
expectancy  that  she  could  not  ask  them  to  sit  down  again. 
For  one  reason,  there  seemed  to  be  a  lack  of  decorum  in 
saying  another  word  on  the  heels  of  the  order  her  father 
had  issued;  it  was  only  fitting  that  they  should  stand,  in 
deference  to  the  mystery  about  to  be  unveiled  to  them, 
their  eyes  upon  the  obscurity  within  the  room. 


VI 

THE  three  stood  there  in  silence,  and  for  a  long  moment 
there  was  answering  silence  within.  The  situation  told 
upon  Mrs.  Harvey,  and  she  caught  a  gasping  breath. 
Her  husband  moved  nearer  and  put  his  hand  over  hers  as 
it  rested  on  the  back  of  her  chair.  She  gave  him  a  quick 
grateful  glance  and  a  little  smile  and,  feeling  the  trem 
bling  of  the  hand  in  his,  he  lifted  it,  and  held  it  in  a  firm 
clasp  under  his  arm.  At  the  first  flash  she  started,  but 
obedient  to  his  admonitory  pressure,  prevailed  on  herself 
to  keep  her  eyes  unflinchingly  on  the  darkness  through 
the  open  door.  Now  the  flashes  came  fast,  of  irregular 
length  and  so  impetuously  that  it  was  impossible  to  keep 
tally  of  them.  Accompanying  them  was  a  zipping  sound 
like  wireless,  after  that  silence  for  a  tense  moment  that 
did  much  to  heighten  expectancy,  and  then  a  series  of 
sounds  like  the  clicking  from  a  telegraphic  apparatus  re 
peated  over  and  over  in  the  same  order.  These  had 
hardly  begun  when  Harvey  started,  raised  his  head 
slightly,  frowned  and  seemed  to  key  himself  up  to  a 
more  intent  listening.  He  gripped  his  wife's  hand  so 
tightly  that  she  thought  at  first  it  was  a  signal  and  looked 
at  him  as  if  begging  him  to  interpret.  But  his  face  was 
so  concentrated  in  its  attention  that  she  perceived  he  was 
thinking  solely  of  the  machine.  And  suddenly  the  click 
ing  ceased,  there  was  silence  in  the  dark  room  and 
Dove  came  out,  walking  no  longer  like  a  young  man  in 
his  strength  but  faltering,  even  swaying  slightly  as  if  he 

58 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  59 

had  taxed  himself  too  far.  Andrea  started  forward,  and 
as  quickly  stopped.  The  inward  monitor  ever  standing 
guard  for  him  in  her  mind  warned  her  that  solicitude  over 
him  would  be  a  species  of  betrayal.  They  must  not  see 
him  at  his  weakest,  now  that  he  had  called  so  desperately 
upon  hidden  reserves  she  had  not  suspected  in  him,  for 
one  last  bit  of  serviceable  bravado,  one  brave  argument 
the  more.  He  was  proving  himself  in  every  nerve  and 
muscle  worthy  of  all  the  help  they  could  give  him.  Isabel 
Harvey  was  speaking. 

"  What  was  it,  Mr.  Dove?  "  she  besought  him.  "  What 
did  it  say?  " 

He  ignored  her.  He  might  not  even  have  heard  her  at 
all.  He  was  looking  straight  at  Harvey,  challenging, 
persistently  confident. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  you  heard?  " 

"  But  we  don't  know,"  said  Isabel,  her  delicate  brows 
coming  together,  "  what  it  said." 

"  I  know,"  said  her  husband. 

He  looked  disquieted.  He  had  been  prepared  for 
fraud,  but  he  was  in  no  sense  ready  for  the  mysteries  at 
tendant  on  the  man's  making  his  claim  good. 

"  Why,  no,  dear,"  said  his  wife.  "  It's  like  telegraph 
ing.  You  don't  know  telegraphy." 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  do,"  he  said,  with  a  rueful  look  that  seemed 
to  say  he  wished  he  didn't  recognize  this  implication  of 
a  supernatural  alphabet,  "  the  rudiments  anyhow.  Before 
I  was  sixteen  I  was  in  an  office.  Mr.  Dove?  " 

"  Well?  "  said  Dove  expectantly. 

A  brighter  spark  lit  up  his  eyes,  or  the  spark  that  lived 
there  had  flickered  into  flame.  Andrea  hated  to  see  it, 
meaning,  as  she  knew  it  did,  an  intensity  of  expectation 
that  might  easily  be  dashed. 

"  Jou  read  it,  of  course?  " 


60          THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

"  Yes,"  said  Dove.    "  It  said  —  " 

"  Wait,"  Harvey  interrupted  him.  "  Let  me  get  my 
note-book."  He  drew  it  from  his  pocket,  tore  out  a  page 
and  slit  that  in  half.  "  Take  this  bit  of  paper.  Here's 
a  pencil.  Write  down  what  your  flashes  said.  Done 
it?  Give  me  the  pencil  and  I'll  write  it,  too.  Now  we'll 
pass  the  papers  to  my  wife  and  she'll  tell  us  how  they 
agree." 

He  took  Dove's  folded  paper  and  gave  it,  with  his  own, 
to  Isabel  who,  after  some  fumbling,  found  her  lorgnon 
and  opened  one  after  the  other. 

"Why,"  she  said,  "they're  just  the  same:  'Increase 
your  power.'  "  And  then  the  significance  of  it  cleared  be 
fore  her  and  she  added:  "  But  of  course  they're  the  same. 
I  don't  see  why  you  did  it  that  way,  Peter.  I  should  have 
been  just  as  well  satisfied  to  have  Mr.  Dove  tell  us  —  or 
to  have  you,  dear,  of  course." 

"  But  it's  proved,"  cried  Dove,  in  a  wildness  of  delight 
that  drew  the  renewed  inquiry  of  Harvey's  glance.  "  He'g 
proved  it,  don't  you  see?  " 

Isabel  was  puzzled  at  so  exact  a  precision  over  so  slight 
a  thing  when  great  issues  were  at  stake. 

"  But  I  wish,"  she  said,  "  we  could  have  had  something 
positive,  something  from  Phil.  Don't  you  think  you 
could  try  it  again,  Mr.  Dove?  If  you  tried  definitely  now 
to  get  my  son  —  " 

"  Wait,  dear,"  said  her  husband  gently.  "  We  haven't 
proved  anything  except  what  the  flashes  say.  They  do 
read:  '  Increase  your  power,'  but  we  don't  know  any  more 
than  we  did  before  about  the  way  they  are  made." 

"Why,  Mr.  Dove  has  told  us.  You  may  not  under 
stand  it.  I  don't  either.  But  I  don't  see  any  need  of 
our  understanding  it,  if  we  can  get  the  message." 

"  Mr.  Dove,"  said  Harvey,  "  I  suppose  you  have  some 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  61 

theory  of  the  meaning  of  those  words,  *  Increase  your 
power '?  " 

"  It  means,"  said  Dove  without  hesitation,  "  that  with 
a  quarter  of  a  gramme  of  olympium  I  can  get  that  message 
from  somewhere  outside  our  atmosphere,  and  if  I  had 
more  olympium  and  increased  my  power  I  should  get 
other  messages,  maybe  fuller  ones,  maybe  from  farther 
away.  I  am  willing  to  swear  I  should  hear  what  some 
other  world  is  waiting  to  say  to  this  one." 

"  Oh,"  said  Isabel,  trembling  so  that  her  husband  and 
Andrea,  whose  eyes  were  on  her  now,  felt  a  new  pity  for 
her,  "  that's  the  very  thing  he's  trying  to  prove  to  us. 
He  must  have  money  to  make  more  olympium  and  in 
crease  his  power.  Peter,  it  isn't  possible  you  don't 
see." 

"  Wait,  dear,"  said  her  husband  patiently.  "  We  haven't 
come  to  that  yet." 

But  her  desire  was  so  overwhelming  that  she  pushed  on, 
past  his  entreaties,  past  his  known  desires. 

"We  mustn't  be  blind,"  she  said,  her  pathetic  lip 
trembling.  "  How  often  have  we  said  we  wouldn't  shut 
ourselves  up  in  our  prejudices.  Even  mother  owns  that, 
though  it's  about  other  things.  We're  not  the  only  ones 
waiting  for  news.  It's  the  whole  world.  Mothers,  Peter, 
waiting  for  their  sons!  " 

Harvey  yielded  to  a  counter  deduction  long  enough  for 
a  little  whimsical  twist  to  curl  the  corners  of  his  mouth. 
"  Fathers,  too,  perhaps  "  was  the  inevitable  retort  if  he 
had  permitted  himself  one ;  but  indeed  there  was  no  slight 
est  temptation.  She  was  too  deep  in  her  bewildered 
misery. 

"  Why,"  she  was  saying  now,  in  an  impulsive  conviction 
impressive  even  to  Dove,  so  that  his  eyes  left  Harvey  and 
toned  searchingly  on  her,  "  if  giving  him  every  cent  we've 


62  THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

got  would  bring  such  a  discovery  one  minute  nearer, 
don't  you  see  we're  bound  to  give  it?  " 

"  She  understands,"  broke  in  Dove,  as  if  he  felt  his 
triumph  already  in  his  hands.  "  Women  don't  reason; 
they  see.  My  daughter  has  seen  from  the  first.  She  has 
devoted  herself  to  carrying  it  through." 

Andrea  gave  him  a  grateful  but  also  a  wondering  glance. 
This  was  the  first  time  she  had  known  him  to  commend 
the  quality  of  her  devotion.  Harvey  had  stood  thinking 
while  these  last  things  were  said,  his  wife's  persuasions 
and  Dove's  response.  Now  he  turned  to  Dove  with  a 
business  man's  succinctness  when  he  comes  to  terms. 

"  I'll  make  you,"  he  said,  "  a  proposition." 

Isabel  Harvey,  throwing  Andrea  a  little  smile,  impul 
sively  put  out  her  hand.  Andrea,  grasping  it,  again 
thought  for  a  bewildering  instant  that  shot  into  this  pres 
ent  interview  like  a  ray  of  unexpected  light,  how  strange 
it  was  that  this  should  be  the  mother  of  her  lover  who 
had  died.  They  clasped  hands  and  stood  there  as  if 
allied  in  their  impatience  and  their  hope.  But  Dove,  to 
Andrea's  amazement,  expecting,  as  she  had,  to  see  him 
give  some  sign  of  unequivocal  joy,  looked  merely  thought 
ful. 

"  I  will  bring,"  Harvey  went  on,  "  three  scientific  men 
of  the  highest  standing  to  this  room  to-morrow  morning, 
and  you  shall  give  them  a  demonstration." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  a  demonstration? "  asked 
Dove,  frowning. 

"  Very  little.  I'm  prepared  to  accept  a  minimum  of 
proof.  If  you  get  the  message  we  have  just  read  and 
they  agree  that  you  get  it  legitimately  —  " 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  legitimately?  "  put  in  Dove. 

"  I  hardly  know  how  to  tell  you,"  said  Harvey  frankly, 
"  without  being  offensive.  For  I'm  not,  as  you  see,  a 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS          63 

scientific  man.  You  could  —  anybody  could  —  impose 
almost  any  sort  of  ingenious  trick  on  me  —  " 

"  Peter!  "  cried  his  wife.  "  Oh,  you  don't  mean  that! 
No,  Mr.  Dove,  he  doesn't,  not  in  the  way  it  sounds." 

She  was  begging  Mr.  Dove,  it  seemed,  to  show  a  leni 
ency  of  judgment  her  husband  might  not  deserve  but  that 
should  benevolently  be  shown  him  on  the  score  of  his 
ignorance  of  scientific  values.  But  Dove  took  no  notice 
of  her,  only  repeating  thoughtfully  to  himself: 

"  A  trick!  "  and  then  concluding:  "  What  then?  " 

"  If,"  continued  Harvey,  "  they  agree  that,  to  the  best 
of  their  knowledge  and  belief,  the  flashes  and  accompany 
ing  use  of  the  code  constitute  a  message,  and  that  the 
message  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  any  data  known  to 
them,  I  will  stake  you  to  the  extent  of  five  thousand 
dollars." 

The  two  women,  with  an  according  impulse,  smiled  at 
each  other,  Mrs.  Harvey  tearful  in  her  gratitude  and 
Andrea  glowing.  But  Dove,  looking  deeply  thoughtful, 
repeated,  as  if  to  himself: 

"  Five  thousand  dollars." 

He  showed  no  sort  of  recognition  of  the  offer  in  any  per 
sonal  sense,  either  gratitude  or  relief,  and  the  two  women, 
surprised,  each  after  the  nature  of  her  interest  in  the 
question,  turned  to  him  with  an  identical  desire  of  saving 
the  situation  by  prompting  him  to  some  sort  of  adequate 
response.  But  Harvey  had  not  looked  for  an  impetuous 
acceptance.  He  might  not  have  been  surprised  at  it,  had 
it  come,  but  he  was  simply  making  a  business  proposition 
and  in  the  world  where  such  things  are  commonplaces, 
men  hardly  make  an  emotional  matter  of  them.  He  con 
tinued: 

"  If  within  the  next  three  months  after  receiving  the 
five  thousand  dollars  you  come  upon  any  further  result 


64  THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

that,  by  a  consensus  of  scientific  opinion  to  be  determined 
on  later,  is  declared  to  be  valid,  I  will  form  a  company  to 
finance  your  work  for  the  next  ten  years." 

Again  the  two  women  mutely  interrogated  Dove  who 
still  remained  staring  down  at  his  shabby  shoes  and  work 
ing  his  mouth,  as  if  he  had  words  but  could  not  manage 
them. 

"  Father!  "  Andrea  said  remindingly  and  left  her  pla«e 
at  Mrs.  Harvey's  side  to  touch  him  on  the  arm. 

Isabel,  her  face  sweetly  suffused,  looked  at  her  husband 
gratefully. 

"  I  knew  you  would/'  she  said.  "  Phil  knew  it,  or  he 
wouldn't  have  brought  us  here." 

"  Father!  "  Andrea  prompted  him.  "  You  heard  what 
Mr.  Harvey  said." 

"  I  heard  him,"  said  Dove,  and  though  it  was  under  his 
breath  it  must  have  sounded  ungracious  to  any  hearers 
less  determined,  for  varying  reasons,  to  show  him 
the  tenderest  consideration.  Whatever  his  attitude  might 
be  toward  them  and  all  the  world  beyond  his  laboratory, 
his  great  need  was  apparent  enough  to  ensure  him  special 
privilege. 

"  Well,"  said  Andrea,  hesitating,  "  oughtn't  you  to  — 
I'm  sure  we're  so  grateful,  aren't  we  father?  we're  so  re 
lieved." 

Dove  made  no  direct  answer.  He  only  repeated  to 
himself: 

"A  consensus  of  opinion  of  scientific  men." 

"  Can  you  think  of  anything  better?  "  asked  Harvey. 
"  Isn't  that  what  you'd  want  yourself?  " 

But  now,  to  Andrea's  unspeakable  alarm,  her  father's 
face  settled  into  the  querulous  lines  she  knew.  In  the  re 
juvenation  he  had  been  able  to  compass,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  interview,  those  lines  had  disappeared  and,  with 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THB   WORLDS  65 

the  piteous  proneness  of  the  human  heart  to  accept  joy 
as  permanent,  she  had  thought  them  gone  for  good.  And 
now  he  was  speaking,  not  to  Harvey  but  to  her,  in  the 
old  complaining  key: 

"  Shouldn't  you  think  there'd  be  enough  faith  left  in 
this  world  to  take  a  man's  own  word,  a  man  that's  worked 
as  I  have,  that's  stripped  himself  of  everything  —  " 

"  You  don't  accept  my  conditions?  "  Harvey's  voice 
came  in  curtly. 

"  I  don't  say  that,"  said  Dove,  still  with  the  inexpli 
cable  implication  of  being  driven  to  the  wall.  "  I  don't 
say  I  don't  accept  them." 

"  If  you  can  suggest  anything  fairer  —  "  Harvey  began, 
and  Dove  answered  querulously: 

"  Oh,  they're  fair  enough  —  from  your  point  of  view." 

"  But,  father,"  Andrea  prompted  him,  "  they're  all  we 
could  ask  for,  all  anybody  could  ask.  They're  splen 
did." 

"  Well,  then,"  he  said,  in  an  angry  desperation,  "  they 
are  splendid.  I  suppose  you  know." 

"And,"  she  still  prompted  him  shyly  but  with  persis 
tence,  she  was  so  desperately  afraid  of  losing  what  he  had 
his  hand  on,  "  you  accept  them,  don't  you?  Father!  " 

"  Yes,"  he  responded  grudgingly,  "  I  accept." 

Peter  Harvey,  little  as  he  expected  outspoken  gratitude, 
did  look  at  him  in  a  humorous  questioning.  Still  he  did 
not  allow  himself  to  be  surprised.  These  might  be  the 
ways  of  scientific  men,  queer  ducks  like  artists  and  fel 
lows  of  that  ilk,  specially  endowed. 

"  Then,"  he  said,  "  I'll  scare  up  my  three  scientists  and 
fetch  them  here  for  the  first  demonstration.  To-mor 
row?  " 

"  No,"  cried  Dove,  in  a  shrill  violence,  "  not  to-morrow." 

"Ah!"  said  Harvey  interrogatively,  as  if  delay  bred 


66  THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

doubt.  "  When  shall  I  bring  them?  if  not  to-morrow  the 
day  after?  " 

"  No,  no,"  said  Dove,  as  if  he  had  a  right  to  fretful- 
ness,  he  was  being  tried  so  far. 

"  Very  well  then,  in  a  week?  " 

But  instead  of  answering  Dove  turned  to  Andrea  and 
asked  piteously,  in  the  tone  of  a  child  who  may  on  the  in 
stant  break  down  and  sob  from  sheer  tiredness : 

"  Don't  you  see  I'm  all  in?  " 

"  Peter !  "  said  Isabel  remindingly ,  and  he  at  once  took 
up  his  hat  to  go.  He  was  often  bewildered  by  the  out 
come  of  what  he  considered  his  commonplace  endeavors 
to  make  the  way  plain  before  some  stumbling  fellow  who 
couldn't  find  it.  Here  he  was  smoothing  the  path  for  this 
irascible  old  gentleman  who,  instead  of  electing  to  go  on 
in  it,  was  sitting  down  by  the  roadside  bewailing  the  hard 
ships  he  had  undergone  in  getting  thus  far.  Yet  there 
was  something  perversely  devilish  in  being  "  all  in."  It 
came  when  you  could  least  afford  it.  He'd  seen  men, 
knocked  out  in  that  way,  lose  all  their  chances,  too,  poor 
chaps !  through  not  being  strong  enough  to  ride  the  wave 
when  it  came.  Though  maybe  the  man  wasn't  so  old, 
after  all,  not  older  than  Harvey  himself.  It  was  a  brute 
of  a  world,  he  reflected,  when  a  finely  strung  creature 
could  be  worn  to  such  unserviceable  shreds. 

"  He's  been  working  too  hard,"  Isabel  was  saying  to 
Andrea,  who,  bewildered  between  the  necessity  of  sooth 
ing  her  father  and  at  the  same  time  pressing  him  to  his 
own  advantage,  was  merely  looking  piteous  and  saying 
nothing. 

"  Working?  "  Dove  cried  in  the  strident  voice  of  acute 
self-pity.  "  Of  course  I've  worked  too  hard.  Did  you 
ever  hear  of  a  man's  discovering  anything  and  not  work 
ing  himself  into  his  grave?"  He  swayed  a  little  and 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  67 

turned  again  to  Andrea  as  if  he  were  frightened  at  his  own 
unstable  poise.  "  I'm  lightheaded,"  he  muttered. 
"  Things  look  strange  to  me." 

Isabel  was  bent  on  getting  away  as  soon  as  possible. 
Nothing,  she  saw,  would  compose  him  but  Andrea  with 
whatever   arts  of   soothing  her   accustomed  tasks  had 
taught  her.    But  when  they  were  at  the  door  and  Harvey, 
holding  it  open  for  his  wife,  turned  to  bow  a  grave  fare 
well,  Dove  started  forward. 
"  Don't  forget,"  he  cried,  "  I've  accepted." 
"  Very  well,"  said  Harvey.    "  The  offer's  open." 
"  But  give  me  a  week,"  said  Dove,  in  an  inexplicable 
tone  of  beseeching,  "  only  a  week." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Harvey  kindly,  "  you  shall  have  a 
week." 


VII 

ANDREA  stood  at  the  door  watching  them  while  they  got 
into  the  car  and  looked  back  to  wave  a  last  good-bye.  It 
was,  she  gratefully  felt,  to  assure  her  of  their  wordless 
sympathy,  to  offer  a  renewed  promise  that  whatever  her 
father  would  allow  them  to  do,  in  the  only  way  they 
could  do  it,  on  that  she  might  count.  She  closed  the  door 
and  came  back  to  him  where  he  stood  clenching  his  hands 
and  ejaculating  a  word  or  two  she  could  not  catch.  She 
went  up  to  him  and  gently  touched  one  of  the  tense  hands. 

"  Come,  dear,"  she  said,  "  lie  down  and  let  me  cover 
you.  It's  all  settled.  Don't  you  know  it  is?  " 

"  Settled?  "  he  threw  at  her.  "  They  drive  me  into  a 
corner  and  you  call  it  settled." 

She  had  recovered  her  composure.  It  was  necessary, 
as  necessary  as  that  the  nurse's  calmness  should  keep  pace 
with  the  patient's  mounting  delirium. 

"  Never  mind,"  she  said.    "  Let's  not  argue  it  now." 

"  No,"  he  said  bitterly,  "  accept  it.  Accept  anything 
they  offer,  and  say  '  Thank  you  '  to  them.  But  don't  tell 
me  to  lie  down  and  sleep.  What  time  have  I  for  sleep 
when  I've  got  to  be  ready  for  them  in  a  week  from  to 
day?  " 

"You  were  wise,"  she  cajoled  him,  "to  say  a  week. 
That  gives  you  time  to  get  a  little  rested  and  me  to  ar 
range  the  rooms.  We'll  carry  it  off  with  a  high  hand. 
You  must  have  some  clothes,  dad.  I  see  you,  new  trous 
ers,  not  those  old  shiny  legs,  new  cravat — " 

68 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  69 

He  was  not  looking  at  her. 

"  God  in  heaven!  "  he  exclaimed,  not  wildly  but  con 
versationally  and  looking  up  as  if  quite  sure  the  God  in 
heaven  heard,  "  what  shall  I  do?  " 

"  You  dread  it,  don't  you?  "  she  asked  tenderly.  "  I 
wish  you  didn't.  It  doesn't  seem  as  if  you  need." 

"  Who  will  they  be?  "  Again,  though  without  looking 
up,  this  time,  he  seemed  to  be  interrogating  the  God  in 
heaven  Who  alone  could  sound  his  mortal  misery. 
"  Scientists.  Three  scientists  of  standing." 

She  laughed  a  little,  as  if  amusedly,  but  really  coaxing 
him  to  that  plane  of  hope  where  the  sanity  of  Harvey's 
plan  had  led  her,  leaving  her  there  secure  with  that  last 
reassuring  wave  from  the  car. 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  who  do  you  suppose  they'll  be? 
Some  of  those  young  professors  you  used  to  have  down 
at  Long  Cliff  when  you  talked  about  iodides  and  I  had  to 
go  to  bed,  you  got  so  dull?  Dad,  I  almost  think  you 
made  a  mistake  shutting  yourself  up  years  ago  and  not 
seeing  them  any  more.  Perhaps  this  will  start  you  off 
and  you'll  begin  again." 

"  Begin  again!  "  he  repeated,  staring  at  her.  "  Take  a 
lot  of  sceptics  on  board,  just  when  I'm  setting  out  on  my 
big  adventure?  " 

"  That's  a  pretty  way  to  put  it,"  said  she,  still  coaxing 
him  along  as  you  might  coax  a  child  into  a  flowery  mea 
dow  out  of  the  dusty  road  where  the  trials  of  the  way 
have  been  too  much  for  him.  "  Sailing  —  an  adventure, 
that's  what  it  is.  And  you're  Columbus  and  Mr.  Harvey 
is  Queen  Isabella  and  he's  going  to  sell  his  jewels  to  fit 
you  out  and  presently  you'll  be  calling  'Land  hoi' 
You're  the  captain,  dad.  You're  the  lookout,  too;  you're 
the  whole  show." 

"  This  next  week,"  he  said,  "  don't  speak  to  me,  don't 


70          THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

look  at  me,  don't  ask  me  to  leave  the  house.  I've  got 
the  most  damnable  problem  to  work  out  that  ever  a  man 
had,  and  in  one  week." 

"  But  dearest,"  said  she,  wondering,  "  you're  ready  for 
them  now.  You've  only  to  say  '  how  d'ye  do  '  to  his  pro 
fessors,  or  whatever  they  are,  and  take  them  in  there  and 
let  them  see  the  thing  work.  They'll  get  the  flashes,  at 
least,  just  as  the  Harvey s  did,  and  hear  it  click  out '  In 
crease  your  power.'  I  trust  it  to  do  that.  It  wouldn't 
fail  us  the  one  day  when  it  could  earn  all  that  money 
for  you  to  go  on  with.  It  never'd  be  so  mean  as  that." 

Her  father  turned  to  her  and  regarded  her  steadily,  a 
look  that  reassured  her  as  his  manner  of  receiving  the 
Harveys  had  done,  showing  him  so  capable  of  the  self- 
control  he  lacked  in  his  desultory  intercourse  with  her 
that  she  could  believe  him  to  be  still  a  man  of  strength 
and  power. 

"  Andrea,"  said  he,  as  if  he  were  bent  on  impressing  her 
with  the  extreme  importance  of  what  he  had  to  say, 
"  I've  got  nothing  to  show  them;  nothing,  that  is,  a  trained 
mind  would  accept." 

"  But,"  she  said,  bewildered,  "  it  said,  '  Increase  your 
power.' " 

"  It  said  it,"  he  repeated  bitterly.  "  Yes.  And  who 
prompted  it?  who  made  it  rap  out  the  Morse  code?  I 
did." 

"  You  did?  Then  that  means  you've  more  control  over 
it  than  I  thought.  You  can  summon  them,  whoever  they 
are,  and  make  them  answer,  and  because  they  can't  an 
swer  fully  they  say, '  Increase  your  power.'  " 

He  stood  looking  at  her  a  full  minute,  considering. 
Perhaps  he  was  wondering  whether  it  was  not  wasteful, 
one  of  those  terrible  traffics  where  we  barter  gold  for 
dross,  to  run  the  risk  of  losing  her  untouched  belief  in 
him.  But  she  was  only  an  atom,  as  he  was  himself  com- 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE  WORLDS          71 

pared  with  the  colossal  good  he  meant  to  bring  about. 
And  at  this  stage  she  could  help  him  more  by  acting  with 
him,  her  eyes  open,  than  by  following  blindly  on,  armed 
only  with  her  unsupported  confidence.  That  he  might 
lose  her,  he  never  for  a  moment  guessed. 

"  Andrea,"  he  said,  "when  I  tell  you  I  did  it,  I  mean  I 
did  it  by  a  trick,  a  trick  a  mere  student  of  the  a  b  c's  of 
physics  would  detect  at  once." 

"  A  trick?  "  she  repeated,  only  puzzled,  as  yet.  It 
must  be,  she  thought,  some  eccentricity  of  what  he  was 
pleased  to  call  his  mechanical  .toy. 

"  A  trick,"  he  said.  "  Nobody  has  called  me  from  any 
mysterious  source.  Nobody  has  asked  me  to  increase 
my  power.  But  —  "  and  now  his  gravity  of  composure 
disappeared.  The  light  she  knew  and  dreaded  had  come 
back  into  his  eyes  —  "  but  it  remains  just  as  much  a  fact 
that  that's  what  I've  got  to  do.  I've  got  to  increase  my 
power.  And  what  difference  does  it  make  whether  I  tell 
a  literal,  hard-headed  fellow  like  Harvey  that  I  know 
it's  so,  or  whether  I  convince  him  by  a  harmless  demon 
stration?  " 

"  But,  father,"  said  Andrea,  struggling  with  her  dismay 
and  a  growing  terror  of  his  mental  processes,  "  you 
wouldn't  deceive  those  two." 

"  Wouldn't  I?  "  said  he  grimly.  "  There  isn't  the  man 
or  woman  living  I  wouldn't  deceive  to  bring  me  an  inch 
nearer  my  result.  I  don't  know  whether  there's  a  man 
or  woman  I  wouldn't  kill." 

And,  blankly  thrown  back  upon  her  unprepared  self, 
all  that  occurred  to  her  to  say,  was: 

"  Daddy,  won't  you  lie  down?  " 

Then  ensued  one  of  the  strangest  interviews  she  had 
ever  had  with  him.  Up  to  this  time  she  had  known  him 
as  children  know  their  elders,  without  analysing,  without 
question.  It  had  been  the  inherited  partnership  of  love. 


72  THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

But  now,  of  fixed  purpose,  he  set  out  to  translate  himself 
to  her,  to  impress  on  her  mind  his  real  image  because  the 
moment  had  come  when  only  so,  he  believed,  could  she 
serve  his  tremendous  project.  He  sat  down  and  pointed 
to  her  chair  and  she  was  glad  to  take  it. 

"  Andrea,"  said  he,  with  that  unchanged  air  of  holding 
her  to  an  intent  consideration  of  the  fact  before  them, 
"  did  you  ever  think  what  it  is  to  be  a  scientist?  " 

"  A  scientist?  "  she  repeated  wearily. 

She  was  disinclined  to  enter  upon  abstract  explications. 
It  seemed  to  her  he  might  give  her  a  few  sane  facts  to 
feed  on  and  prevent  her  life  from  being  so  unpalatably 
queer  as  it  was,  so  unlike  the  lives  of  other  daughters  who 
had  not  incurred  the  fate  of  genius  in  a  father.  This  was 
the  first  time  she  had  retreated  from  him  far  enough  to 
conceive  their  interests  as  separate  and  perhaps  conflict 
ing.  Up  to  this  time  she  had  not  allowed  herself  to  rec 
ognise  any  just  desires  of  her  own;  but  the  moment  of 
facing  Philip  Harvey's  picture  had  awakened  in  her  a 
bitterness  of  revolt  that  she,  so  young,  had  been  called 
upon  to  suffer  such  unformulated  griefs.  If  she  had 
known  the  Harveys  before  their  son  died,  known  them  as 
his  father  and  mother,  so  that  she  could  have  had  some 
friendly  intercourse  with  them,  a  staff  for  her  grief  to 
lean  upon,  then  there  would  have  been  something  natural 
and  bearable  in  it  all.  But  he  had  come  to  her  from  the 
skies,  he  had  been  withdrawn  into  the  skies  again,  and  the 
familiar  places  that  had  known  him  on  earth  were  closed 
to  her.  And  all  this  had  stung  her  into  a  madness  of  re 
volt.  For  the  first  time  she  felt  her  youth  had  had  its 
rights  and  chance  denied  them  to  her.  But  she  repeated 
her  father's  word  and,  scarcely  waiting  for  it,  he  w«nt 
on  in  his  argument,  desperately  calculated,  she  saw,  from 
point  to  point,  to  move  her. 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE  WORLDS          73 

"  Yes,  a  scientist.  Being  a  scientist  is  fighting  your 
way  through  every  difficulty  to  the  closed  door." 

"  The  closed  door,"  she  repeated,  again  wearily. 

"  That's  what  science  does.  She  lets  you  open  one  door 
after  another;  but  you  have  to  reach  the  door  with  such 
struggling,  and  you're  so  weakened  by  the  long  way,  by 
hunger,  by  thirst!  Andrea,  think  of  the  men  that  have 
opened  doors,  and  how  they  suffered,  most  of  them,  and 
nobody  believed  and  nobody  cared.  But  they  never 
stopped  for  an  instant  trying  to  reach  the  one  door  they 
were  making  for,  to  drag  it  open,  so  that  others  could 
go  through  —  even  over  the  dead  body  of  the  one  that 
opened  it  —  out  into  the  light." 

Still  he  was  not  moving  her  from  her  trance  of  self- 
pity  and  he  saw  it  and  called  on  himself  the  more  mightily, 
with  a  louder  voice.  She  did  speak,  but  faintly  and  with 
only  a  sad  interest  in  what  he  said: 

"Poor  little  father!" 

"  You  don't  see  it  yet,"  he  insisted,  "  that  picture  of 
the  door  that'll  stay  closed  till  somebody  offers  up  him 
self  to  open  it.  That's  where  I've  got,  Andrea,  don't  you 
see?  Right  up  to  the  door,  and  now,  when  my  strength 
is  gone  from  fighting  my  way  along,  comes  the  hardest 
task  of  all.  I've  got  to  fling  myself  at  the  door.  I've  got 
to  batter  it  down." 

"  Well,  dear,"  she  answered,  "  that's  what  I  say. 
You've  made  the  long  journey.  We've  made  it  together. 
I've  been  there,  too.  I  haven't  left  you  for  a  minute."  Her 
mouth  quivered,  as  if  she  wished  he  might  remember  this 
again  without  her  prompting.  "  And  now,"  she  said,  call 
ing  on  her  old  cheerfulness,  "  Mr.  Harvey  is  going  to  help 
you  batter  down  the  door." 

"  Is  he?  "  said  Dove  ironically.  "  Yes,  I  suppose  he  is. 
He's  going  to  work  by  these  modern  methods  on  a  gi- 


74          THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

gantic  scale  —  everything  in  terms  of  horsepower  —  and 
fetch  an  armored  tank  and  ram  at  the  door  and  burst  it 
through.  But  I've  got  to  stand  with  an  electric  torch  in 
front  of  it,  to  show  the  way.  And  the  tank  is  going  to 
be  full  of  his  damned  professors,  and  if  I  don't  hold  the 
torch  to  suit  'em  they'll  run  me  down." 

"  Father,"  said  Andrea,  "  I  don't  understand  you." 

"  You'll  understand  me  soon  enough,"  he  said  drily. 
"  Harvey  wants  proof.  Well,  I've  given  him  proof  up  to 
his  capacity  for  understanding  it." 

"  You  mean  you  showed  him  something  you  expected 
him  to  take  for  truth." 

"In  a  way,  yes.  An  illustration  it  was,  an  illustra 
tion.  If  I  could  satisfy  him  to  the  point  where  he'd  fi 
nance  me,  I  could  keep  on  in  the  line  where  I'm  work 
ing  and  that  would  take  me,  not  to  any  illustration,  mind 
you,  but  —  since  we've  talked  of  the  door,  —  to  the  open 
door." 

"  It's  a  long  way,  little  father,"  she  said,  with  a  wistful 
tenderness.  He  had  won  her.  She  was  not  thinking  of 
herself  now  but  altogether  of  him.  "  It's  full  of  briers." 

"  I  did  trick  him,"  he  said,  in  a  bitterness  of  retrospect. 
"  I  turned  out  of  my  path  for  a  minute,  only  a  minute,  and 
took  a  short  cut  to  satisfy  a  fool.  Do  you  blame  me  for 
taking  a  short  cut  when  it  was  going  to  set  me  a  million 
miles  further  on?  And  now  I'm  back  in  the  same  old 
path  again,  where  the  briers  are,  you  said;  and  I'm  far 
ther  back  than  I  was  before,  and  the  briers  have  grown. 
My  God!  they've  grown." 

"  You  mean,"  said  Andrea,  puzzling  him  out,  with  diffi 
culty  dragging  after  his  wild  lead,  "  that  you  deceived  him 
to  persuade  him  into  giving  you  the  money  and  that  now 
he  wants  to  put  you  to  the  proof  and  you  can't  —  "  she 
stopped. 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS  75 

If  she  said  it,  she  was  childishly  afraid  she  might  make 
it  so. 

"  Precisely/'  said  he.    "  I  can't  make  good." 

"  Father,"  said  she,  in  a  passion  of  revolt,  "  I  can't  be 
lieve  it.  I  can't  believe  —  " 

There  she  stopped,  but  his  mind  went  on,  supplying 
the  suppressed  conclusion. 

"  You  couldn't,"  he  translated,  "  have  believed  I'd  sell 
myself  to  the  devil.  Well,  I  would  —  for  a  ticket  to  par 
adise." 

He  was  morally  indifferent  to  the  values  they  both  had 
in  mind,  tossing  them  lightly  off  as  negligible,  reckless 
as  youth,  and  she  loved  him  suddenly  with  a  heart  beat 
ing  in  new  understanding  of  his  arrogance.  He  was  not 
pathetic  to  her;  he  was  picturesque. 

"  But,"  she  ventured  to  object,  "  that's  not  science." 

"  What's  not  science?  " 

"  What  you've  done,  taking  your  short  cut.  Science  — 
you've  said  it  yourself  —  is  truth,  the  only  truth  there  is." 

"  There's  more  than  one  road  to  truth."  And  then,  his 
mind,  in  the  intensity  of  its  working,  waking  to  imagery: 
"  When  you've  got  to  truth  herself,  you  can  shine  up  your 
shield  till  she  sees  her  face  in  it;  but  while  you're  fighting 
your  way  to  her  it  gets  as  battered  as  an  old  moon." 

Andrea's  head  was  strained  and  dazed  by  these  verbal 
complexities,  and  she  took  refuge  in  fact. 

"  Well,"  she  said,  "  we  can't  see  them  again." 

"  See  whom?  " 

"  The  Harveys." 

"  Why  not?  " 

"  If  we've  cheated  them  —  "  It  was  impossible  to  re 
gard  herself  except  as  part  of  him. 

"  Good  God!  "  he  cried  exasperated,  "  I'm  not  going  to 
keep  on  cheating  them.  What  good  would  that  do  me, 


76  THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

with  his  scientists  coming  to  paw  me  over?  He's  as 
sharp  as  lightning  —  " 

"  You  said  he  was  a  fool,"  she  put  in  irrepressibly. 

Already  she  loved  the  Harveys. 

"  Then/'  said  he,  "  I  lied.  He's  a  fool  in  a  laboratory, 
but  that's  only  because  he's  had  no  training.  I  tell  you 
the  man's  bright  as  lightning.  I've  got  to  make  good, 
and  I've  got  to  do  it  in  this  one  week.  I've  shown  him  the 
flashes.  I've  faked  a  message.  I've  got  to  get  that  mes 
sage  by  some  legitimate  means  that  will  satisfy  his 
three  spies." 

"  How  can  you?  "  she  wondered. 

"  How  can  I?  If  you're  drowning,  you  swim.  You 
don't  say,  '  How  can  I?  '  If  a  man  hits  out  at  you,  you 
strike  first.  You  can  because  you  must.  I've  got  to  sat 
isfy  his  conditions  and,  by  God!  I  will." 

"Father,"  said  she,  entirely  bewildered  now  in  her 
search  for  the  tortuous  line  between  what  she  might  and 
might  not  believe,  "  isn't  any  of  it  true?  " 

"  Any  of  it?  "  he  repeated,  staring  at  her. 

"  Yes.    Haven't  you  really  discovered  olympium?  " 

He  gave  a  cry,  an  inarticulate  sound,  stronger  than 
she  could  have  imagined  coming  from  his  shrunk  throat. 

"  Of  course  I  have  discovered  olympium,"  he  panted. 
"  It  is  a  fact,  as  much  a  fact  as  radium.  And  it  has 
mysterious  reactions,  mysterious,  I  tell  you.  There's  no 
way  to  account  for  them,  no  wray  but  one.  They  come 
from  outside  our  atmosphere.  They  are  the  work  of 
other  intelligences  trying  to  make  themselves  known. 
I'd  stake  my  life  on  it." 

Heretofore  she  had  accepted  every  statement  he  made 
her  in  its  simplest,  most  obvious  form.  If  he  told  her  what 
he  believed  to  be  true,  she  assumed  it  was  true.  Now, 
though  in  a  painfully  ignorant  fashion,  she  had  begun  to 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS  77 

weigh  and  balance.  And  not  this  evidence  alone:  the 
mere  human  quality  of  it  hurtled  at  her,  hit  her  with  a 
tremendous  impact  and  left  her  trembling  before  life  it 
self  and  its  shifting  values.  Up  to  the  day  when  she  had 
come  on  the  picture  of  Philip  Harvey  in  the  library,  she 
had  thought  as  a  child.  Facts  were  facts,  always  com 
prehensible  if  you  chose  to  prove  them.  You  might  look 
at  them  from  one  angle  or  you  might  measure  them  on  all 
sides  to  see  how,  in  this  strange  fluid  medium  called  life, 
they  were  made  to  fit  the  truth  that  is  more  than  fact. 
But  always  they  did  fit.  And  now  the  sense  of  life  it 
self,  that  obscure,  multi-colored  complexity,  was  upon  her, 
and  she  had  an  overpowering  desire  to  understand  her 
father,  to  see  how  the  facts  he  had  distorted  fitted  the 
truth  within  him. 

"  Father,"  said  she,  "  it's  true,  isn't  it,  there's  nothing 
on  this  earth  you  want  so  much  as  to  establish  communi 
cation  between  this  world  and  —  another?" 

He  answered  gravely. 

"  Yes.  I'd  give  everything  I  have,  if  I  had  anything 
left  to  give.  I'd  give  my  life,  your  life,  everybody's  life. 
It's  the  next  link  in  the  chain.  We  can  speak  from  one 
continent  to  another.  We're  going  to  speak  from  one 
planet  to  another.  And  that  wireless  will  be  known  by 
my  name." 

The  subterfuge  of  his  short  cut  was  forgotten.  She 
gloried  in  him.  When  he  said  he  would  sacrifice  her,  she 
gloried  the  more.  And  it  was  not  alone  because  he  was 
ready  to  enter  the  noble  army  of  martyrs  who  have  laid 
down  their  lives  for  the  truth.  In  the  heightened  ecstacy 
of  her  love  for  a  dead  lover,  she  saw  him  not  only  as  the 
martyr  pioneer  striving  for  the  common  good,  but  himself 
the  constant  lover,  love  itself. 

"  Father,"  she  ventured,  for  they  had  not  talked  of  her 


78  THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE  WORLDS 

mother  for  a  long  time,  "  do  you  suppose  she  knows?  Do 
you  think  she's  trying  on  the  other  side  of  the  door  to  get 
at  you  as  you  are  trying  to  get  at  her?  " 

He  looked  at  her  in  complete  wonder  and  then  asked 
her  the  astonishing  question  in  one  word: 

"  Who?  " 

"  Why,"  said  she,  hardly  believing  she  had  heard  him, 
"  mother.  That's  what  you're  doing  it  for,  of  course, 
to  talk  to  mother.  And  after  all  these  years." 

He  sat  perfectly  still  and  looked  before  him.  She 
waited  and  her  heart  beat  hard.  It  had  begun  to  be 
frightened,  her  heart,  it  had  met  so  many  scarcely  compre 
hended  things  this  day. 

"  Andrea,"  said  he,  at  last,  "  I  am  not  trying  to  com 
municate  with  your  mother." 

She  could  not  answer.  Her  throat  grew  dry  and  she 
hated  the  picture  her  mind  was  conjuring  up.  He  was, 
that  cruel  insight  told  her,  recalling,  and  with  difficulty, 
the  vision  of  her  mother,  sleeping  now  for  years.  He  be 
gan  as  if  he,  under  the  mandate  of  inexorable  truth,  were 
painfully  collating  evidence.  "  I  suppose,"  he  said,  "  it 
was  so  at  first.  Yes,  I  know  it  was.  I  felt  —  as  a  man 
does  when  he  loses  his  wife.  I  wanted  to  know.  I  had  to 
know.  But  afterward  —  "  he  seemed  to  gain  in  actual 
physical  presence  and  towered  with  the  growth  of  his 
waxing  egotism  —  "  afterward  I  just  wanted  to  throw  the 
line  across.  Anybody  might  answer.  It  might  be  your 
mother,  it  might  be  a  man  or  woman  that  died  a  thousand 
years  ago.  Only  I'd  got  to  throw  the  line." 

A  woman  understands  a  man  when  he  speaks  in  terms 
of  her  own  realities.  But  when  he  mounts  his  horse  of 
endeavor  to  ride  out  against  the  dragons  of  ignorance 
and  superstition  that  have  kept  even  her  own  hearth 
stone  dark,  she  may  understand  him  or  she  may  not.  She 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS          79 

may  glory  in  that  wild  ride,  or  even  spring  up  behind  and 
brave  the  darkness  too.  But  for  the  instant  she  feels  the 
lonesomeness  of  seeing  him  off  upon  strange  quests,  hallo 
ing  to  the  silence  in  a  language  not  by  inheritance  her 
own. 


VIII 

ANDREA,  seeing  her  father  as  she  never  had  before,  a 
man  insanely  bent  upon  his  task  for  no  reward  beyond 
the  laurels  that  adorn  illustrious  names,  felt  dulled  and 
cold.  Through  all  the  years  when  he  had  been  growing 
more  irascible,  more  outwardly  remote  from  her,  she  had 
felt  the  inner  heart  of  him  beating  on  in  unchanged  con 
stancy.  Of  late,  especially  since  she  had  met  her  lover 
from  the  skies,  she  had  thriven  on  the  belief  that  here  at 
her  hand  was  love  itself.  Other  homes  might  be  set  to 
the  tune  of  a  sweet  daily  intercourse,  but  on  her  father's 
hearth  lived  the  consecrated  flame:  the  unflagging  devo 
tion  of  a  man  to  his  desire  of  speaking  once  more  with 
his  dead  wife.  His  present  purpose  might  be  greater,  his 
trembling  grasp  upon  the  unfading  laurels,  «his  desire  to 
assure  immortal  certainties  to  a  world  of  men  bereft;  but 
it  was  colder,  and  before  the  frigid  greatness  of  it  she  was 
shivering.  He  saw  that  and  felt  he  had  lost  her,  or  at 
least  her  old  belief  in  him;  and  he  felt,  by  contrast,  how 
heartening  it  had  been,  that  unquestioning  belief  where 
he  had  warmed  himself  as  a  man  hovers  over  the  fire  on 
the  hearth  without  thought  of  the  faithful  hands  that 
built  it  there.  He  was  himself  suddenly  bereft.  He  de 
spaired  of  her.  What  argument  was  here  to  bind  her  to 
him  again? 

"  Wouldn't  you,"  she  hesitated,  "  if  they  brought  a 
scientific  man  here,  wouldn't  you  show  him  what  you 
called  your  mechanical  toy?  " 

80 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  81 

He  shook  his  head. 

"  But,"  he  qualified,  "  if  they'll  give  me  a  chance  I  can 
show  them  something  better  than  a  mechanical  toy." 

"  When?  "  she  asked  fearfully. 

"When!" 

He  looked  back  over  the  years  behind  him,  months  of 
dark  discouragement,  an  hour  of  unbelievable  happiness 
when  mysterious  things  had  happened  in  this  fumbling 
after  the  secrets  nature  was  guarding  with  a  cruelty  so  in 
exorable  that  it  seemed  personal  to  him  alone  and  he  had 
the  dark  solace  of  feeling  himself  under  the  ban  of  the 
gods.  Yet  through  the  obscurity  of  that  time  ran  a 
golden  thread:  his  belief  that  communication  was  possible, 
his  resolve,  stronger  than  past  love  or  present  despair,  to 
find  it.  And  now  he  broke  down  in  a  perfectly  honest 
misery  of  beseeching.  As  she  thought,  in  her  compas 
sionate  mind,  he  went  all  to  pieces. 

"  Andrea,"  said  he,  "  I  know  it  is  possible  for  this  earth 
to  communicate  with  the  rest  of  the  universe  if  there  is 
life  enough  in  the  universe  to  answer  us.  And  I  believe 
there  is.  Whether  it  has  anything  to  do  with  this  planet 
I  don't  know.  But  communication  will  come,  and  it 
won't  come  through  half-baked  mediums  and  fakers.  It 
will  come  exactly  like  every  other  advance  on  this  earth, 
through  science.  Some  slave  of  his  own  insight  and  his 
own  determination  will  open  the  door." 

She  was  looking  at  him  reflectively  and  he  turned  his 
eyes  away.  She  was  musing  over  him,  he  saw,  she  was 
reasoning  and,  like  her,  he  felt  himself  grow  cold.  An 
drea  was  telling  herself  that  he  had  two  parallel  lines  of 
argument.  But  did  they,  at  any  point,  meet?  He  as 
serted  that  interplanetary  communication  was  possible 
and  declared  himself  the  man  to  establish  it.  He  asserted 
that  he  had  discovered  olympium  and  that  olympium  did 


82  THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

inexplicable  things.  Therefore  —  and  here  she  balked  — 
the  things  it  did  were  in  the  line  of  his  theory  of  com 
munication.  Was  he  clear-headed  there?  was  this  logic, 
defective  to  her  only  because  she  was  unpractised  in  its 
art?  Once  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  set  up  her 
poor  reason  in  opposition  to  his  trained  intelligence.  Now 
she  was  hot  upon  penetrating  the  maze  of  probabilities. 

"  Father,"  she  said,  "  I  don't  understand.  You  say 
olympium  makes  the  dots  and  dashes.  But  you  say,  when 
you  tried  to  get  the  dots  and  dashes  to  convince  the  Har- 
veys,  you  played  a  trick." 

"  I  don't  always,"  said  he,  "  get  my  dots  and  dashes 
when  I  expect  them.  I  had  to  have  them  at  that  particu 
lar  minute  because  the  Harveys  were  here  and  the  Har- 
veys  wanted  them.  So  I  helped  them." 

"  But  how?  "  said  she,  in  despair.  "  If  you  don't  un 
derstand  how  they  come,  how  could  you  help  them?  You 
said  the  working  of  your  mechanical  toy  was  outside  your 
control.  How  could  it  have  been  in  your  control  this 
morning?  " 

"  Simply,"  said  he,  "  because  I  didn't  do  it  by  the  use 
of  my  mechanical  toy." 

And  now  he  looked  so  sly  that  she  believed  him.  And 
the  perfidy  of  that  was  so  sickening  upon  her  that  she 
was  about  to  tell  him  she  repudiated  the  whole  thing  both 
from  the  Harveys'  standpoint  and  her  own,  when  he  faced 
about  mentally  and  made  a  last  assault  upon  her  loyalty. 

"  Andrea,  you  don't  understand  these  things.  I  tell 
you  something,  and  you  think  I'm  a  fraud.  I'm  not. 
I'm  only  taking  one  of  the  short  cuts  to  what  I've  got  to 
do.  You  must  leave  all  that  right  here.  You  couldn't 
judge  me  justly  to  save  your  life.  You  haven't  the  knowl 
edge.  Those  Harveys  couldn't.  They  haven't  the  knowl- 
$dge  either.  I've  just  one  thing  for  you  to  do." 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS  83 

"  What  is  it,  father?  "  she  asked  him,  as  he  paused, 
evidently  to  whip  his  arguments  into  line. 

"  If  I  don't  make  my  discovery  before  I  die,  you've 
got  to  make  it  for  me." 

She  was  greatly  startled. 

"  But,  father,"  she  said,  "  how  could  I?  You  say  your 
self  I've  not  the  knowledge,  not  the  training  —  " 

"You  don't  need  them.  You  may  work  better  from 
your  ignorance.  It'll  keep  you  passive.  Do  you  see?  If 
I  die  —  and  sometimes  I  think  I  sha'n't  live  long  —  my 
heart's  not  strong  —  if  I  die,  I  shall  be  at  the  other  end 
of  the  line.  Wherever  they  go  —  spirits  —  I  shall  be 
there.  I  shall  work  through  you.  Don't  let  your  mind 
wander,"  he  cried  peremptorily.  "  Listen  to  me.  In  that 
room,  in  the  upper  right  hand  drawer  of  the  desk,  is  a  set 
of  directions,  very  short.  They  tell  you  where  to  find  it 
—  olympium,  I  mean." 

"  Isn't  it  in  the  case?  "  she  asked. 

They  had  taken  great  precautions  to  keep  it  packed 
when  it  was  not  in  use,  so  that  in  emergency  they  could 
lay  their  hands  on  it.  He  looked  shrewdly  at  her,  as  if 
he  wished  to  seem  inscrutable. 

"  It  is  now,"  he  said.  "  If  I  made  up  my  mind  to  take 
myself  off  the  planet  I  might  put  it  somewhere  else.  It's 
too  easy  to  snatch  up  the  case  —  anybody  coming  in 
here  —  " 

He  was  wandering  off  now,  and  she  recalled  him. 

"  But  nobody  does  come  when  we're  not  here." 

"  My  directions,"  he  said,  waking  again  to  this  last 
imagined  crisis,  "  will  tell  you  what  to  do.  It's  a  simple 
formula.  You  won't  understand,  but  do  it.  When  I  die, 
don't  leave  me  for  an  instant.  Stay  in  that  room  there, 
follow  the  written  directions  and  wait  till  I  communicate. 
For  I  can  communicate.  I  can!  I  willl  " 


84  THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

His  voice  rose  from  the  level  of  reasonable  speech  into 
the  shrill  staccato  that  always  terrified  her ;  it  meant  that 
he  was  as  she  always  explained  it  to  herself,  "  too  tired." 

"  But  father,"  she  began,  "  there  must  be  something  for 
me  to  learn  —  " 

"  Nothing,"  he  cried,  in  a  child's  passion,  "  nothing  but 
the  Morse  code.  You  shall  learn  that  to-day.  Then  all 
you  need  to  do  is  to  sit  down  and  wait  for  news  from  me. 
I'll  write  out  the  message  you  are  to  expect  and  seal  it 
with  my  seal  and  lock  it  up  in  the  top  drawer  on  the  left. 
But  they  wouldn't  believe  you,"  he  added,  dropping  into 
an  apathy  of  discouragement.  "  They'd  say  it  was  a 
put-up  job." 

"  We  mustn't  plan  such  things,"  she  said,  adding  that 
old  futility  of  tenderness,  "  You're  not  going  to  die." 

This  he  did  not  notice.    He  had  roused  again. 

"  You  will  take  the  message,"  he  said.  "  You  will 
write  it  down.  And  you'll  send  for  Peter  Harvey.  He 
must  have  the  key  of  the  drawer.  Ah,  but  how  are  you 
going  to  send?  "  he  cried,  in  great  irritation.  "  After  it 
happens  you're  not  to  leave  me.  He  must  have  the  key 
now.  He  must  have  a  latch  key,  too,  so  you  needn't  even 
let  him  in.  Aha!  I  know.  We'll  put  in  a  telephone. 
Then  you  can  summon  him.  He  will  let  himself  in,  he'll 
unlock  the  drawer  and  take  away  the  message  and  yours 
with  it,  and  he  will  break  the  seal  in  the  presence  of  wit 
nesses." 

It  occurred  to  her  that,  after  all,  it  would  come  back  to 
her  own  good  faith,  since  he  might  be  supposed  to  have 
told  her  what  the  message  was.  But  this  she  would  not 
say:  he  was  too  tired.  Instead,  she  assured  him  gently: 

"  Daddy,  you're  not  going  to  die." 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  answered.  "  It  might  be  the  last 
sacrifice.  If  I  felt  sure  I  should  work  better  from  that 
end  of  the  line  —  " 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  85 

Here  he  paused,  and  she  cried  out: 

"  0  father,  no !  you  wouldn't  do  that.  You  mustn't 
even  think  it." 

"  What  else  can  I  do?  "  he  demanded  angrily.  "  This 
man  puts  on  me  a  condition  I  can't  fulfil." 

"  Can't?  "  she  repeated,  with  a  sinking  heart.  "  You 
said  you  must." 

"  It  isn't  possible,"  he  declared,  again  out  of  deepest 
gloom.  "  I  must  work  in  my  own  way  or  not  at  all.  As 
for  these  people,  give  them  up.  I've  no  use  for  a  man 
who's  so  infernally  particular  about  seeing  where  his 
money  goes." 

"  But,"  said  Andrea,  "  I  don't  want  to  give  them  up." 

She  was  bringing  her  own  poor  little  desires  into  this 
drama  between  worlds,  simply,  she  knew,  because  she 
ached  with  loneliness. 

"  You  know,"  she  said,  "  I  told  you  it  was  their  son  who 
came  down  and  talked  with  me  that  day  on  the  way  to 
Long  Beach." 

"  What  day?  " 

He  was  looking  at  her  in  absolute  lack  of  understand 
ing.  He  had  forgotten,  and  the  stab  of  it  stung  her  to 
cry  out: 

"  0  father,  I  told  you.  He  is  the  only  one  I  ever  cared 
about,  and  he  was  their  son." 

"  Then  tell  them  so,"  he  threw  back  at  her,  "  and  get 
something  out  of  them.  Get  Harvey  to  say  he'll  stake 
me  for  three  months,  a  year,  without  driving  any  sort  of 
Shylock  bargain  with  me." 

She  was  aghast  at  the  effrontery  of  it. 

"  But  I  can't,"  she  said.  "  I've  no  claim  on  them. 
You  talk  as  if  we'd  been  engaged  —  and  even  then  I 
couldn't  —  or  married  to  him." 

"  You  should  have  married  him,"  he  said,  impervious  to 


86  THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

possibilities,  ignoring  them,  thrusting  them  out  of  the  way, 
and  dashing  on  to  his  own  ends.  "  Then  you  could  have 
demanded  something  of  them  and  they  wouldn't  have  had 
the  face  to  refuse  you." 

"  Do  you  mean  —  "  she  began,  and  stopped. 

"  I  mean,"  said  he,  "  if  you  were  so  selfish  as  to  let  a 
rich  man's  son  make  love  to  you  and  leave  you  when  we're 
on  this  awful  road,  this  briery  path  —  you  said  it  yourself 
—  never  once  telling  him  he  could  save  us,  you'd  better 
sacrifice  your  pride  and  save  us  now  yourself.  Tell  them 
he  was  in  love  with  you.  He  was,  wasn't  he?  Tell  them 
he  married  you.  Tell  them  anything.  Only,  for  God's 
sake,  get  the  money,  or  you'll  force  me  into  making  my 
last  sacrifice.  Yes,  as  God's  my  witness,  I  swear  I'll  kill 
myself." 

She  stood  staring  at  him  and  he  stared  back  at  her  and 
then,  enraged  at  her  silen.ce,  he  went  into  his  room  and 
shut  the  door. 


IX 

MADAM  BROOKE  was  by  the  fire  in  her  daughter's  sit 
ting-room,  her  chair  turned  at  an  angle  to  command  the 
room.  Miss  Bixby,  the  noiselessly  competent  secretary, 
who  came  in  to  gather  up  some  papers  from  the  table, 
gave  her  a  respectful  glance,  but  brief  as  it  was,  it  enabled 
her  to  snatch  a  complete  volume  of  enlightenment  from  the 
old  lady's  attitude,  her  head  bent  slightly  as  she  addressed 
herself  to  the  morning  paper.  Madam  Brooke  stayed  in 
her  own  room,  Miss  Bixby  knew,  unless  the  family  gov 
ernment  was  in  some  sort  of  agitation,  and  then  she  came 
down  and  seated  herself  nearer  the  centre  of  things.  This 
discovery  had  dawned  on  Miss  Bixby  only  since  Philip's 
death  and  the  wave  of  automatic  writing  that  had  en 
gulfed  the  house,  and  she  was  the  more  alive  to  its  sig 
nificance  because  she  herself  ruled  these  psychic  waves. 
The  old  lady  made  Miss  Bixby  uneasy.  Her  glance,  sa 
tirical  on  occasion,  pitilessly  sharp,  threw  the  wrong  light 
upon  the  vague  outlines  Miss  Bixby  saw  growing  under 
her  pencil  as  it  sketched  another  world  conformable  to 
the  dreams  of  mourning  mortals.  Mrs.  Harvey,  too,  felt 
the  power  of  that  glance,  Miss  Bixby  knew,  and  had  sent 
her  now  to  fetch  their  ghostly  tools  to  the  room  below,  on 
the  transparent  pretext  that  it  was  warmer  there.  The 
instant  she  had  gone,  Madam  Brooke  confirmed  her  diag 
nosis.  She  let  her  paper  slide  to  the  floor,  rose  and,  with 
her  stiff  sprightliness,  something  like  a  bird's  movement 
on  the  ground,  went  to  the  table,  pushed  the  electric  but- 

87 


88  THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

ton  beside  it,  and  had  just  returned  to  her  chair  when  Su- 
sanne  answered  it. 

"  Is  Mr.  Harvey  in  the  library? "  asked  Madam 
Brooke. 

Susanne  was  sure  of  it.  She  had  just  taken  him  the 
mail. 

"  Ask  him  to  come  here,"  said  Madam  Brooke.  "  Tell 
him  to  read  his  letters  first,  if  he  wants  to.  I  may  keep 
him  some  time." 

It  seemed  Mr.  Harvey  did  not  want  to  read  his  letters, 
for  he  appeared  at  once,  cast  a  glance  toward  the  table 
in  the  window  recess  and  then  came  on  to  Madam 
Brooke. 

"  Draw  up,"  said  she.  "  You  were  afraid  Isabel  wanted 
you."  She  too  glanced  at  the  table  in  the  alcove,  one 
eyebrow  lifted  and  a  half  developed  smile.  "  I'll  war 
rant  you're  never  asked  to  enter  this  room  now  without 
wondering  if  it's  a  message  through  that  woman  that'll 
cost  you  half  your  income." 

Harvey  also  smiled,  but  in  a  rueful  way.  Although  it 
was  the  morning  he  looked  tired,  and  now  he  passed  his 
hand  over  his  forehead  to  mitigate  the  feeling  of  the  lines 
there  that  would  never  be  actually  smoothed  out. 

"  Oh,"  he  said,  "  I'm  pretty  well  prepared  for  anything 
that's  likely  to  happen  on  the  score  of  —  "  Again,  by 
a  glance,  he  indicated  the  table,  but  he  didn't  like  to  re 
fer  to  its  uses  with  the  emphasis  he  felt.  They  were  un 
holy  to  him.  It  was  a  banal  form  of  meddling,  but  after 
all  it  meant  Philip  and  if  he  flouted  it  he  seemed  to  be 
flouting  Philip  also.  The  old  lady  put  out  her  hand  ana 
touched  his  with  one  finger. 

"  Peter,"  said  she,  "  you  ought  to  turn  that  Bixby  out 
of  the  house." 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  what  can  I  do?  " 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS  89 

"  After  all,"  she  remarked,  "  you're  the  head  of  the 
house.  You  needn't  be  afraid  of  Isabel.  She's  gentle  as 
a  lamb.  That  is,  she  is  by  nature.  Isabel's  not  quite 
the  same  since  she's  taken  up  planetary  communication. 
Still,  I  fancy  she'd  do  anything  you  say." 

"  But,"  said  he,  "  she  gets  some  comfort  out  of  it." 

"So  she  would  out  of  a  drug,"  returned  the  old  lady 
bluntly.  "  But  she'd  have  to  pay  for  it  in  the  end.  And 
if  she  wants  to  drug  herself,  let  her  go  out  of  the  house 
to  do  it,  or  have  in  somebody,  somebody  that's  square,  if 
any  of  them  are.  She  isn't  square,  Peter,  that  Bixby 
isn't.  You  can  tell  it  by  her  eye." 

"  No,"  he  said  reflectively,  "  I  shouldn't  say  she  was. 
But  she  might  be  any  kind  of  a  crook  and  yet  do  a  per 
fectly  square  stunt  of  automatic  writing." 

"  Is  anybody  square,"  she  challenged  him,  "  when 
they've  let  themselves  loose  in  all  creation?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  he,  "  I'm  perfectly  sure  of  that,  dozens 
and  dozens,  hundreds  even." 

"  You  don't  mean  to  tell  me,"  she  countered,  "  you  be 
lieve  there's  anything  in  it." 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  I'm  inclined  to  think  there  may  be 
something." 

"  Do  you  believe  my  husband  is  writing  all  that  stuff 
about  spheres  and  meeting  Philip  and  warning  you  to  look 
out  the  malicious  spirits  don't  cut  in— -do  you  believe 
that?  " 

"  No,"  said  he,  as  if  it  gave  him  hearty  relief  to  repu 
diate  something,  "  not  for  a  moment." 
"  Then,  if  it  isn't  spooks,  what  is  it?  " 
"  I  haven't  the  least  idea." 

"  Do  you  think  Bixby  may  be  possessed  by  some  power 
she  doesn't  understand,  or  do  you  believe  she's  fraud  right 
through?  " 


90  THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

"  I  should  say,"  he  answered,  smiling  at  her  because  he 
knew  he  was  about  to  give  her  the  special  pleasure  of  cor- 
roboration,  "  if  I'm  to  trust  the  evidence  of  my  senses  — 
that  sort  of  mental  nose  we  have  for  smelling  out  the  kind 
of  person  a  person  is  —  I  should  say  the  hated  Bixby  is 
pretty  well  tinctured  with  fraud." 

"There!"  cried  the  old  lady,  in  high  triumph. 
"  There!  and  yet  you  won't  get  rid  of  her." 

"  I  won't  give  Isabel  the  shock  of  doing  it  at  present, 
not  till  she's  a  little  less  broken  over  Phil.  I  have  an 
idea  Brooke's  coming  home  will  make  some  difference 
about  that,  —  talking  with  him,  seeing  him  round  the 
house,  you  know.  It'll  occupy  her  mind  more  and  more, 
and  she'll  gradually  give  up  her  drug." 

"  And  yet,"  said  the  old  lady  ruthlessly,  "  she's  so  taken 
up  with  it  that  she's  almost  indifferent  to  Brooke's  com 
ing  home." 

This  he  knew,  and  yet  he  winced  under  it. 

"  She  may  seem  so,"  he  said,  "  but  that's  partly  becaust 
she's  so  determined  to  have  news  of  Phil  to  give  him  when 
he  comes.  That  takes  in  both  the  boys,  you  see." 

She  reflected  for  a  moment. 

"  So,"  she  said,  "  it  seems  you  do  see  through  Bixby." 

"  Well,  at  least  I  fancy  I  do.  I  suppose  I  could  be  con 
vinced  I'd  done  her  an  injustice.  But  that  Miss  Dove 
now,  you  couldn't  convince  me  I  don't  understand  her." 

"  What,"  said  the  old  lady,  her  belief  in  his  perspicacity 
scattering,  "  you  don't  mean  to  tell  me  you  distrust  Miss 
Dove?  " 

"Distrust  her?  Heavens,  no!  I  believe  in  her  down 
to  the  ground.  If  she  told  me  she'd  had  a  message  from 
my  first  wife  I  should  swallow  it  implicitly." 

"  Why,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  you  never  had  a  first 
wife.  That  is  —  I  mean  —  " 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS          91 

"  Precisely,"  said  he.  "  But  if  Miss  Dove  brought  me 
a  message  from  my  first  wife  I  should  take  it  and  say 
'  Thank  you/  " 

"  It's  the  way  her  eyebrows  act,"  said  Madam  Brooke 
conclusively.  "  I  feel  just  the  same.  Don't  mention  her 
in  the  same  day  with  the  Bixby  woman.  That's  quite 
another  pair  of  sleeves.  Peter,  if  you  actually  caught 
Bixby  at  her  tricks,  would  you  dismiss  her  then?  " 

"  I  fancy  so.  Yes,  I  would.  I'd  send  her  packing,  on 
the  spot." 

"  Well,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  I've  got  a  plan." 

He  loved  her  plans,  they  seemed  to  put  such  energy  of 
youth  into  her.  He  had  had  moments,  in  these  last  weeks, 
of  wishing  Isabel  were  growing  a  little  more  like  her 
mother,  that  there  was  a  spark  more  intellect  and  fun  in 
her  soft  adhesiveness. 

"  I  thought  it  out  last  night,"  she  said,  "  when  I  wag 
saying  my  prayers." 

"  Do  you  say  your  prayers?  "  he  inquired. 

She  was  so  uncompromising  that  he  expected  her  to 
demand  proof  of  the  heavenly  powers  before  she  recog 
nized  them. 

"  Silly !  "  said  she.  "  Of  course  I  say  my  prayers.  I 
pray  for  my  dead,  too.  Not  many  of  you  do  that,  I  bet  a 
dollar.  Well,  last  night  just  as  I  finished  you  all  up 
—  here,  you  know,  you  and  Isabel  and  Brooke  and  Bee  — 
and  got  to  Philip  it  came  into  my  head  what  I  could  do 
and  I  laughed  right  out.  Isabel's  door  was  open  and  she 
called:  '  Mother,  was  that  you?  '  " 

"  I  heard  her,"  said  Harvey.    "  You  didn't  answer." 

"  Of  course  I  didn't.  I  was  saying  my  prayers,  wasn't 
I?  But  this  was  what  I  thought.  That  woman  sits  in 
the  alcove  there  by  the  hour,  addressing  notes,  doing  ac 
counts,  all  sorts  of  things  when  she  isn't  at  her  automatic 


92          THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

writing.  She  flits  in  and  out  like  a  shadow.  She  doesn't 
like  me  very  well.  She  knows  I'm  onto  her." 

Peter  laughed  out.  It  was  at  the  last  excellent  phrase 
and  she,  too,  smiled  at  it. 

"  Oh,  I  can't  help  it,"  said  she.  "  I  got  it  from  the  boys. 
Well,  the  next  time  I  hear  her  coming  I'll  doze  in  my 
chair.  You'll  see  her  going  by  the  library  door,  and  you 
run  up  here,  pass  her  without  speaking  and  you  and  I'll 
fall  into  talk.  And  I'll  tell  you  a  yarn  about  my  brother 
who  died  —  " 

"  Your  brother,"  said  Peter,  "  is  as  hypothetical  as  my 
first  wife." 

"  Of  course  he  is.  Do  you  s'pose  I'd  meddle  with  the 
dead?  No!  but  I'll  tell  you  what  he  used  to  say  to  me, 
and  I'll  bet  Aunt  Clarissa's  snuff  box  against  your  gold 
pencil  that  baggage'll  write  it  out  as  a  message  within  a 
week." 

"  Done,"  said  Peter.  "  She  couldn't.  It's  too  child 
ish.  She's  not  more  than  half  dishonest.  She  may  give 
the  pencil  the  least  little  push,  but  she  doesn't  make  up 
whole  histories.  I  don't  believe  that  of  her." 

"  Very  well,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  we  shall  see. 
You'd  better  be  in  the  library.  Isabel's  going  out  at 
eleven  and  she'll  send  her  up  here  to  work  at  that  table. 
I'll  fall  asleep  in  my  chair." 

Harvey  went  down  to  the  library  smiling  at  her  ancient 
guile  and  not  greatly  interested  in  the  outcome.  But  it 
happened  as  she  had  foretold.  Busy  over  his  papers,  he 
heard  a  step  along  the  hall,  looked  up  and  saw  Miss 
Bixby's  trig  black  figure  pass  his  door.  He  laid  his  papers 
on  one  side  and,  still  smiling  at  the  persistent  gamesome- 
ness  of  his  old  friend,  went  up  to  his  wife's  sitting-room. 
And  there  again  it  happened  as  she  had  foretold.  The 
window  where  Miss  Bixby  sat  was  not  in  direct  range  of 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS          93 

the  door,  but  he  was  aware  of  her.  Madam  Brooke,  bent 
absurdly  double,  was  asleep  in  her  chair.  He  advanced 
toward  her,  stopped  at  a  dozen  paces  and  called  her 
name.  She  recovered  herself  with  a  jerk. 

"  Stand  there,"  she  bade  him  crisply,  "  right  where  you 
are  while  I  tell  my  dream.  If  you  come  any  nearer, 
you'll  make  me  forget.  I  was  dreaming,"  she  recited,  in  a 
voice  calculated  to  carry,  "  of  my  brother  Samuel,  dead 
long  ago.  YouVe  heard  me  speak  of  him.  He  was  the 
only  one  that  called  me  Ellen.  '  Ellen,'  he  used  to  say, 
'  if  I  can  come  back  I  will,  and  I'll  remind  you  of  the 
time  we  chased  the  spotted  cow  to  put  a  wreath  of  daisies 
round  her  horns/  But  he  never  came,"  she  concluded 
mournfully.  "  He  never  came." 

Whether  Miss  Bixby  pricked  up  her  ears  or  not,  neither 
of  them  knew.  Peter  Harvey,  feeling  very  much  of  a 
fool,  duly  waited  for  the  conclusion  of  Madam  Brooke's 
rhapsodising  and  then  advanced  and  took  the  languid 
hand  she  gave  him.  She  drew  him  to  her  and  cocked  an 
eye. 

"  How  was  that?  "  she  queried.  "  I  hope  I've  made 
myself  clear." 

"  You  have,"  said  he,  "  you  serpent  of  old  Nile." 

She  raised  her  voice  and  went  on  improvising.  Peter 
was  ashamed  of  her,  he  told  her  in  an  aside,  and  ashamed 
of  himself  for  humoring  her,  and  presently  she  resumed 
her  natural  tone. 

"  There,"  she  said,  "  now  we'll  stop  playing  the  fool. 
She's  gone." 

He  turned  to  look.  The  table  was  in  order,  the  chair 
before  it  empty. 

"  You've  the  ears  of  a  cat,"  said  he.  "  I  didn't  hear 
her." 

"  Hear  her!  "  said  she,  in  her  abiding  scorn  of  the  un- 


94          THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

ready.  Was  it  necessary,  she  seemed  to  ask,  to  lag  so 
by  the  way?  "  Nor  I  either.  I  felt  her.  Don't  you 
suppose  I  know  when  such  a  creature  as  that  comes  and 
goes?  It's  the  pricking  of  my  thumbs." 


IT  lacked  a  day  of  the  week  Peter  Harvey  had  given 
Andrew  Dove  to  prepare  for  him  and  his  committee  of 
investigation.  Again  Madam  Brooke  had  settled  herself 
in  Isabel's  sitting-room.  These  were  troublous  times  in 
the  house  and  she  hovered  more  persistently  about  the 
probable  scene  of  action.  And  to-day,  as  time  passed  and 
it  began  to  look  unlikely  that  anything  significant  would 
happen,  even  the  usual  programme  at  the  table,  Isabel 
came  in  with  the  evident  purpose  of  seeking  her.  Some 
thing  was  on  her  mind. 

"  Mother,"  said  she,  "  who  was  Samuel?  " 

Madam  Brooke,  stiff  as  a  soldier  on  parade,  stared  up 
at  her.  Some  fiery  stimulus  might  have  run  over  her 
nerves,  she  looked  so  incredulous  of  the  words,  so  moved 
in  her  welcome  of  them,  so  altogether  gay. 

"  Isabel,"  said  she,  "  will  you  oblige  me  by  ringing  that 
bell  and  calling  Peter?  " 

"  What  do  you  want  of  Peter?  "  asked  his  wife.  "  He 
doesn't  know.  At  least  I  suppose  he  doesn't.  It  evi 
dently  happened  a  long  time  ago,  before  Peter'd  even  met 
us.  Anybody  named  Samuel  who  died,  you  understand. 
He  called  you  Ellen." 

"  Isabel,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  making  an  upward 
move  to  leave  her  chair,  "  will  you  send  for  Peter  or  shall 
I?" 

"  I'll  call  him  myself,  dear,"  said  Isabel. 

She  left  the  room  and  was  back  presently  with  Peter, 

95 


96  THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

to  whom  she  had  confided  that  mother  was  very  much  ex 
cited. 

He  found  her  so,  but  his  eyes  told  him  the  excitement 
was  rejuvenating  and  delightful. 

"  Now,"  said  Madam  Brooke  to  her  daughter,  coinci 
dent  with  the  little  triumphant  nod  she  had  given  Peter, 
as  if  to  bid  him  take  note  how  indubitably  she  had  come 
out  on  top,  "  now  Isabel,  what  was  it  you  had  to  say?  " 

"  Why,"  returned  Isabel,  "  it  may  be  nothing  you  know 
anything  about,  only  I  was  interested  in  it  because  — 
well,  you  know  I'm  interested.  I  just  asked  you,  who  was 
Samuel?  " 

Peter  gave  a  little  involuntary  sound  and  Madam 
Brooke  shook  her  head  at  him. 

"  Be  quiet,  Peter,"  she  adjured  him.  "  Go  ahead,  Isa 
bel.  I  know  all  about  Samuel.  What  have  you  got  to 
tell  me?  " 

"  It's  simply  queer,"  said  Isabel.  She  consulted  a  paper 
in  her  hand.  "  It's  very  much  like  nonsense,  and  I  had 
Miss  Bixby  write  it  off  so  I  should  be  sure  to  get  it  right. 
It's  something  about  a  spotted  cow." 

"  Yes,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  a  spotted  cow.  What 
else?  " 

She  would  not  look  at  Peter.  He  was  making  more 
sounds  and  suppressing  them  with  difficulty,  so  that  his 
wife  looked  at  him  now  and  asked  sympathetically: 

"  Have  you  taken  a  cold,  dear?  " 

"  The  spotted  cow,"  insisted  Madam  Brooke,  tapping 
impatient  fingers  on  the  stand.  "  What  else?  " 

Isabel  consulted  her  paper. 

"  You  and  Samuel,"  said  she,  and  paused  to  look  up  in 
terrogatively  "  —  I  don't  know  who  Samuel  was  —  you 
chased  her  and  tried  to  put  a  wreath  of  daisies  round  her 
horns.  There!  I  can't  make  anything  of  it;  but  that's 
the  way  it  came." 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS  97 

At  this  point  Peter  Harvey  took  a  gold  pencil  from 
his  pocket  and  laid  it  in  Madam  Brooke's  extended 
hand. 

"  I  suppose/'  said  the  old  lady,  in  an  ecstasy  of  delight 
her  daughter  could  not  fail  to  see,  "  I  suppose  it  came 
through  in  the  usual  way?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Isabel  deprecatingly. 

She  was  a  sweet  person  who,  in  spite  of  the  late  change 
in  her,  still  shrank  from  strife.  But  her  mother  pursued 
her  catechism,  now  evoking  the  hated  name. 

"Through  Miss  Bixby?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Isabel  faintly  and  Harvey  was  moved,  as 
he  always  had  to  be  when  the  tide  set  against  his  wife,  to 
save  her  actual  mischance. 

"  There,  Mother  Brooke,"  said  he,  under  his  breath, 
"  it's  funny.  It's  tremendously  funny,  but  there!  " 

"  You  needn't  '  there  '  me!  "  said  the  old  lady,  abating 
none  of  her  delight.  "  You  can't  stop  me  by  any  of  your 
there-ing.  Isabel,  I  sha'n't  tell  you  who  Samuel  is.  Or 
rather  I  sha'n't  tell  you  now;  but  I  give  you  my  word 
this  is  a  perfectly  grand  message." 

"  Is  it  authentic?  "  asked  Isabel,  in  a  fearful  delight 
of  her  own,  incredulous  of  anything  so  marvelous  as  that 
her  mother  should  consider  evidence.  "  Does  it  prove 
anything?  " 

"  It  proves  a  good  deal,"  said  the  old  lady,  still  in  high 
feather.  "  Authentic?  Well,  in  a  sense  it  is.  You  let 
me  think  it  over,  Isabel,  and  I'll  tell  you  all  about  it." 

The  chances  were  that  Harvey,  in  his  compassion  for 
his  wife's  perplexity,  would  have  put  forth  some  sort  of 
immediate  explanation,  but  at  that  moment  Susanne  ap 
peared  with  the  announcement  that  Miss  Dove  was  be 
low,  to  see  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harvey. 

"  Of  course,"  said  Isabel  at  once,  diverted  to  a  more 

H 


98  THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

feasible  hope.  "  Ask  her  to  come  up."  And  in  the  two  or 
three  minutes  before  Andrea  appeared  they  did  not,  for 
varying  reasons,  recur  to  Samuel  again. 

When  Andrea  came  in,  they  were,  in  their  several  ways, 
shocked,  almost  to  the  point  of  outcry,  by  her  look.  She 
was  haggard.  Her  youth  had  gone,  unless  indeed  what 
she  had  kept  was  the  look  of  youth  that  has  suffered  phys 
ical  mischance.  Isabel  hurried  to  meet  her  and  took  her 
hands  and  Peter,  following,  found  himself  uttering  "  Poor 
child!  "  a  repetition  not  intended  to  be  heard,  but  only 
for  the  relieving  of  his  kindly  heart.  They  led  her  to  the 
fireplace  where  Madam  Brooke,  having  put  her  triumph 
and  her  pencil  by,  regarded  her  with  a  concern  Andrea 
was  grateful  for,  and  brought  her  a  chair  so  that  they 
formed  a  little  group  there  before  the  old  lady.  The  girl's 
face  quivered  pathetically  as  she  glanced  again  at  the 
faces  that  seemed  to  promise  such  kindness  of  heart.  For 
the  first  time  in  the  week  she  had  not  seen  them  she  began 
to  feel  warmth  in  her  veins.  She  began  abruptly. 

"  It's  no  use.     My  father  won't  do  it.    He  can't." 

She  stopped  there  and  Harvey  prompted  her. 

"  He  isn't  ready  to  see  me  again?  " 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  Or,"  he  went  on  gently  but  inexorably,  for  though 
his  heart  was  softness  itself  he  could  not  yet  abandon  the 
business  man's  obstinate  acumen  in  dealing  with  business 
usages,  "  he  won't  let  me  bring  somebody  to  him  —  one 
man  even,  who  knows  more  about  these  things  than  I 
do,  to  tell  me  where  we  stand,  so  I  can  start  the  ball  roll 
ing —  if  I  can." 

Again  she  shook  her  head. 

"  He  can't,"  she  protested.    "  He  simply  can't." 

"  Well,"  said  Harvey  patiently,  "  now  why  can't  he? 
what's  your  opinion?  Is  it  that  —  "  he  put  it  quite  cas- 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS          99 

ually  not  to  affront  her  —  "  is  it  that  there's  nothing 
there?  " 

But  instead  of  breaking  into  the  passionate  avowal  he 
expected,  she  looked  at  him  mournfully  and  said,  as  if 
she  had  repeated  the  same  thing  over  and  over  to  herself 
until  she  was  tired  of  the  sound  of  it: 

"I've  given  up  thinking  of  that.  What  I'm  thinking  of 
now  is  father  himself.  I'm  afraid  something  will  happen 
to  him.  I'm  afraid  he'll  kill  himself." 

"  Peter !  "  cried  Isabel,  and  he  knew  what  it  meant. 
It  stood  for  a  whole  page  of  expostulation  and  entreaty. 
If  money  would  save  a  man  from  the  despair  of  threat 
ening  to  end  his  life,  if  money  would  save  this  girl  from 
the  terror  of  listening  to  such  threats,  the  money  must  be 
forthcoming.  But  Peter  Harvey  was  not  so  readily  con 
vinced.  He  did  not  over-prize  his  money,  but  he  felt  it 
was  an  important  ministrant  of  life,  and  he  liked  recog 
nised  ways  of  giving  it.  He  meant  to  add  to  the  world's 
soundness,  not  its  folly. 

"  Tell  us,"  he  said  to  Andrea,  "  precisely  what  your 
father  says." 

She  began  and  told  him  with  a  perfect  clarity  how  he 
had  threatened,  as  a  last  resort,  to  quit  work  at  this  end 
of  the  line  he  believed  to  exist  between  the  earth  and 
something  outside  its  atmosphere  and,  leaving  her  here, 
to  take  himself  elsewhere.  She  told  him  of  the  message 
locked  in  the  drawer  of  the  desk  which  Peter  Harvey  alone 
was  to  open,  and  she  took  from  her  purse  the  key  of  the 
drawer  and  a  key  to  the  house  and  gave  them  to  him. 
Her  father,  she  said,  on  this  day,  which  had  been  one  of 
unusual  violence  of  despair,  had  ordered  her  to  bring  the 
keys  and  make  this  explanation,  because  there  was  no 
knowing  how  soon  the  keys  would  be  needed,  and  when 
that  time  came  she  would  be  at  her  station  in  his  labor- 


100        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

atory  waiting  for  the  message  he  was  sure  to  send.  Har 
vey  took  the  keys  and  sat  holding  them  as  if,  though  he 
was  tempted  to  repudiate  the  argument  they  implied,  he 
could  not  pain  her  by  refusal.  Then,  to  give  her  the  com 
fort  of  at  least  a  temporary  acceptance,  he  got  up  and 
dropped  them  in  the  table  drawer. 

"  The  amount  of  it  is,"  he  began,  and  then  stopped. 
What  he  had  been  about  to  add  was:  "  The  man's  dotty." 

But  Madam  Brooke  said  it  for  him  in  another  form. 
She  was  an  exceedingly  gentle  old  lady  when  actual  mis 
ery  appealed  to  her. 

"  Miss  Dove,"  said  she,  "  I'm  afraid  your  father  has 
been  working  too  hard.  You  find  that,  I  dare  say.  He's 
not  himself,  and  it  worries  you." 

Andrea  met  this  with  a  wholesale  assent. 

"  Oh,  he's  not  at  all  himself.  Or  rather  he's  been  like 
this  for  a  long  time,  nervous,  excitable,  not  eating  or 
sleeping.  Only  now  it's  worse.  It's  so  bad  that  I  don't 
see  —  "  she  hesitated  and  her  pale  face  became  even  more 
haggard  —  "I  don't  see,"  she  ended,  "  how  we  can  go  on." 

They  understood  that  this  covered  the  terrified  belief 
she  could  put  in  no  more  explicit  terms;  she  did  not  see 
how  her  father  could  go  on  without  breaking  in  some  tragic 
way. 

"  He  talks  about  it  all  the  time,"  she  said.  "  This  week 
has  been  especially  bad.  I  get  so  —  well,  I  do  get  fright 
ened,"  she  added,  with  a  little  smile  appealing  to  them 
for  tolerance  of  her  inadequacy.  "  You  see,  I'm  afraid 
he'll  do  something  terrible  —  to  himself." 

"  Of  course  you're  frightened,"  said  Harvey.  "  Any 
body  would  be.  He  must  see  a  doctor.  There's  not  the 
slightest  doubt  about  that." 

"  And  go  away  from  there,"  said  Isabel,  the  vision  of 
the  desolate  room  rising  up  before  her.  "  My  dear,  why 
won't  you  let  us  —  " 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  MS  tJfaRIOte        101 


"Oh,  no,  no,"  said  Andrea,  terrified  now  from  another 
angle  of  circumstance.  It  was  appalling  to  her  that 
strange  hands  should  perhaps  constrain  him,  unfamiliar 
voices,  however  kind,  counsel  him  in  conventional  ways 
of  getting  well.  "  He  wouldn't  live  a  minute,  if  you  took 
him  away  from  his  work." 

"  Well,"  said  Harvey,  "  then  try  to  make  him  ease  up. 
If  he's  under  a  strain  getting  any  sort  of  demonstration 
ready  for  the  test  I  proposed  to  him,  tell  him  that's  off. 
I  sha'n't  think  of  it  again  and  he  mustn't.  When  he's 
good  and  ready  he  can  call  on  me  again." 

Andrea's  courage,  the  small  wave  of  it  she  was  conscious 
of  that  morning,  receded  and  left  her  breathless  on  the 
sandy  beach  of  her  despair.  She  had  the  distraught  feel 
ing  of  the  expert  who  knows  every  wheel  and  bolt  and  nut 
of  a  racked  mechanism  and  sees  ignorant  hands  about  to 
meddle  with  it,  whereas  if  the  hands  would  only  lend  her 
the  tools  and  guarantee  her  silence  and  leisure,  she  could 
put  it  in  order  herself.  She  had  gone  a  long  distance 
since  she  had  seen  them  last.  Now  her  one  thought  was 
money,  the  angelic  ministrant  which,  though  it  might  not 
advance  her  father  on  his  distracted  way,  would  at  least 
save  his  poor  mind.  And  before  she  knew  it  she  was  en 
treating  them. 

"  Oh,"  she  said,  "  you  wouldn't  say  these  things,  if  you 
knew.  You'd  do  things.  You'd  do  the  only  thing  that 
would  save  him." 

Harvey  was  about  to  assure  her  he  would  do  whatever 
she  counselled,  in  her  emergency,  for  the  case  had  passed 
far  beyond  any  consideration  of  supernatural  agencies; 
but  the  flood  of  her  desperation  was  unloosed  and  she 
went  on,  not  heeding. 

u  You  don't  know,"  she  was  proclaiming  excitedly, 
"  you  don't  know.  I  am  your  son's  —  "  here  her  father's 


102       tf-Hff  WIN!)  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

reproach  came  upon  her  like  a  whirlwind  and  blew  her 
into  that  no  man's  land  where  the  lie  reigns  in  a  sinister 
kingdom  of  its  own  —  and  she  concluded,  "  I  am  your 
son's  wife." 

And,  having  said  it,  she  was  calm.  She  had  made  her 
wild  leap  into  the  chaos  of  that  country  and  her  love  and 
her  despair  combined  into  a  tenacity  of  purpose  to  hold 
her  place  there.  The  effect  of  her  declaration  was  not 
startling  at  all.  The  words  were  followed  by  a  complete 
silence,  except  for  a  slight  rustle  when  Madam  Brooke 
turned  in  her  chair  to  face  them  more  exactly.  Andrea 
looked  from  one  to  the  other  and  they  were,  she  saw,  com 
passionate. 

"  You  don't  believe  me,"  she  cried,  undaunted  now  in 
the  fury  of  the  warfare  she  was  waging  for  her  father's 
easement.  "  I  knew  your  son.  I  married  him.  And 
for  his  sake  —  for  his  sake  —  " 

Her  voice  sounded  strangely  in  her  ears  and  she  rose 
and  grasped  the  chair  back  to  sustain  herself.  Suddenly, 
by  a  sheer  effort  of  will,  she  knew  she  had  got  hold  of 
herself,  and  at  the  same  moment  she  saw,  with  a  wild 
triumph,  that  she  had  got  hold  of  them.  They  might  not 
believe  her,  but  they  did  see  that  something  of  a  grave 
import  was  in  her  words  and  must  be  met.  And  giving 
herself  no  time  for  reaction  to  the  ordinary  intercourse 
of  life,  she  poured  out  her  story,  not  as  she  had  told  it  to 
her  father  but  in  a  swift  eloquence  that  never  halted  for 
a  word.  And  when  she  paused,  Madam  Brooke  spoke  in 
a  curt  commentary: 

"  Just  like  him." 

"  Just  like  him,  mother?  "  Isabel  found  voice  to  say. 
"  Just  like  Philip  to  make  a  secret  marriage  and  say  noth 
ing  about  it  —  to  me?  " 

Even  at  that  moment,  Peter,  with  his  mind  bent  on 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        103 

Andrea's  testimony,  had  time  for  a  little  rueful  commen 
tary  that  the  mother  in  her  took  no  cognisance  of  any 
allegiance  save  to  her. 

"  You  say,"  he  began,  addressing  Andrea,  "  you  met  by 
chance." 

"  Yes,"  she  answered  steadily.  "  There  was  something 
the  matter  with  his  plane  and  he  came  down  in  the  field 
where  I  was  walking." 

"  That  was  the  first  time?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  How  many  times  did  you  see  him  in  all?  " 

"  Six." 

She  was  answering  concisely,  for  she  had  leaped  at  that 
first  lesson  of  the  liar,  that  plausibility  is  chiefly  a  mat 
ter  of  quick  wit.  And  suddenly  she  trusted  her  wits  im 
plicitly. 

"  On  which  occasion,"  he  asked,  "  were  you  married?  " 

"  The  last." 

"  You  had  a  license,  of  course?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  Where  is  it?  " 

"  He  gave  it  to  me  to  keep." 

"  Yes,  but  where  is  it,  my  husband  asked  you,"  Isabel 
echoed  sharply. 

"  It  was  burned,"  said  Andrea,  "  when  my  father's 
house  was  burned." 

"  I  am  lost,"  she  was  telling  herself  inwardly,  without 
any  particular  sorrow  for  it.  "  Probably  I  was  lost  from 
the  beginning  or  I  couldn't  say  these  things.  I  couldn't 
think  of  them." 

"  Did  you  go  with  him  to  get  the  license?  "  Harvey  was 
asking. 

"  No." 

"  I  have  an  idea  it's  necessary." 


104        THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

"  I  believe  it  was  necessary.    But  he  —  arranged  it." 

"  Yes."  muttered  Madam  Brooke.  "  He  could  arrange 
it  if  anybody  could." 

"  Were  you  married  in  a  church?  "  Peter  continued. 

"  No." 

"  Where  then?  " 

"  In  a  field." 

"  Just  like  him,"  nodded  Madam  Brooke.  "  I  could  be 
lieve  it  of  him." 

"  Who  married  you?  " 

"  A  minister  who  afterward  went  to  France." 

"  What  was  his  name?  " 

"  Barry." 

"  She  could  have  seen  that  in  the  newspapers,"  said 
Isabel. 

Her  tone  had  chilled  to  ice. 

"  What  became  of  him?  "  asked  Peter,  laying  a  hand 
on  his  wife's  arm. 

"  He  was  killed." 

"  She  could  have  learned  that  from  the  newspapers," 
said  Isabel  stonily. 

"  What  was  the  date  of  your  marriage?  "  asked  Peter. 

She  was  ready  for  that  also.  Time  had  meant  little  to 
her  of  late,  her  days  slipped  so  monotonously  by ;  but  one 
date,  the  day  she  saw  her  lover,  was  burnt  into  her  by 
many  fires. 

"  August  tenth,"  she  answered,  "  1917." 

"The  day  before  he  sailed,"  said  Isabel.  "Two 
months  before  he  was  killed." 

"  Why  do  you  suppose,"  Harvey  was  asking  her 
gravely,  "  Philip  didn't  speak  of  this  to  us?  " 

"  You  didn't  know  me,"  she  said  readily. 

"  Why  hadn't  he  made  you  known  to  us?  " 

"  There  wasn't  time.  There  was  no  time  for  anything 
then." 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS         105 

"  Why  shouldn't  he  have  written  us,"  said  Harvey, 
gravely  persuasive  now,  as  if  he  begged  her  also  to  weigh 
these  problems  with  him.  "  Do  you  think  he  didn't  con 
sider  the  possibility  of  not  coming  back?  Why  didn't  he 
write  me  and  ask  me  to  look  out  for  the  girl  he  —  " 

There  he  stopped.  In  his  heart,  so  implicit  was  his 
faith,  he  did  believe  her,  but  he  hated  the  disorderly 
method  of  it  all.  He  wished  his  son  had  played  the  man. 

"  He  thought,"  said  Andrea,  "  he  would  come  back." 

"Did  your  father  know  him?  " 

"  No." 

"  In  those  six  times  of  his  coming  you  didn't  take  him 
to  your  house  to  see  your  father?  " 

"  No." 

"  Why  not?  " 

"  My  father,"  said  Andrea,  trembling  now,  for  she  felt 
she  was  being  carried  with  an  alarming  rapidity  out  to  a 
rougher  sea,  "  was  worried  about  his  own  affairs.  I 
couldn't  have  told  him  a  thing  like  that.  It  would  have 
been  cruel." 

«  Why?  " 

"  He  would  have  thought  I  had  another  interest.  He'd 
have  thought  he'd  lose  me.  Why,  I've  kept  my  father 
alive.  When  he's  worked  eighteen  hours  at  a  stretch, 
I've  kept  him  going  by  just  holding  him  up  in  my  hands. 
You  don't  know  what  my  father  is  to  me." 

"  You  speak  of  him,"  said  Isabel  bitterly,  "  with  more 
affection  than  you  seem  to  feel  toward  my  son." 

"  You  don't  want  me  to  speak  to  you  of  your  son,"  said 
Andrea.  What  little  light  remained  in  her  face  faded  out 
and  left  it  gray.  "  Besides,  I  must  conquer  that.  I  must 
stop  thinking  of  him  or  —  "  Here  she  paused  and  got 
hold  of  herself  by  an  effort.  "  But  my  father  is  alive." 

"  What  do  you  want  of  us?  "  asked  Isabel,  in  a  voice 


106        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

keyed  to  such  a  strident  pitch  that  her  husband,  in  a 
warning  undertone,  spoke  her  name.  But  she  continued, 
"  Money?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Andrea  desperately.  "  You  said,"  she  con 
tinued,  turning  to  Harvey,  "  it  was  strange  your  son  had 
not  provided  for  me  —  " 

"Philip,"  he  corrected  her.  "Why  don't  you  say 
Philip?  " 

She  bowed  slightly  in  sign  of  accepting  the  correction, 
and  continued: 

"  I  don't  ask  you  to  provide  for  me.  I  couldn't  take  it 
if  you  offered  it.  But  I  ask  you,  because  your  son  —  " 

"  Philip,"  he  insisted,  watching  her. 

And  then  she  did  cry  out,  as  if  she  were  beside  herself: 

"  Why  do  you  want  to  drive  me  crazy?  " 

"  I  don't,"  he  said.  "  Go  on.  Say  what  you  were  going 
to  say." 

"  I  ask  you,  because  your  son  married  me,  to  give  my 
father  the  money  you  would  be  willing  to  give  me." 

"  It's  only  another  way  of  putting  it,"  said  Isabel. 

"  I  have  made  your  father,"  said  Harvey,  "  a  fair  offer." 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  to  bring  in  three  men,  cut  and  dried 
professors,  wet  blankets  —  " 

"  They  won't  put  out  the  fire  if  the  fire's  there,"  said' 
Harvey  quietly.  "But  we  needn't  discuss  that.  As 
suredly  I'll  provide  for  you,  at  least  while  we're  learning 
more  about  all  this." 

It  had  been  too  incredibly  easy.  The  surprise  of  it 
swept  her  off  her  feet.  The  pity  of  it  did  not  strike  her 
then  that  it  was  out  of  the  man's  great  goodness  of  heart 
she  had  been  able  to  persuade  him.  But  before  she  could, 
in  her  new  craft,  determine  what  words  it  would  be  wise 
to  use  in  gratitude  or  whether  she  should  let  herself  go  in 
the  overwhelming  relief  she  felt,  Susanne  turned  the  cur- 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS         107 

rent  of  their  thoughts.  She  rushed  in,  herself  a-twitter 
with  her  news,  every  canon  of  the  serving  maid's  trade 
forgotten. 

"  He's  come,"  she  cried,  and  kept  on  saying  it.  "  He's 
come!  he's  come! " 

"  Who's  come?  "  inquired  Isabel,  profoundly  shocked 
by  this  reversal  of  tradition. 

"  Why,"  said  Madam  Brooke  composedly,  though  with 
a  thrill  in  her  voice,  "  Brooke,  of  course." 


XI 

A  VOICE  had  followed  Susanne  into  the  room,  a  man'g 
voice,  young,  full  of  excited  laughter: 

"  Susanne,  shut  up.     Is  that  any  way  —  " 

The  four  people  in  the  room,  silenced  by  the  interrup 
tion  three  of  them  understood  at  once,  turned  to  the  door. 
Madam  Brooke  had,  at  the  first  syllable,  risen  and  stood 
erect,  exultant  in  the  consciousness  that,  although  this  was 
scarcely  less  moving  than  a  return  from  the  dead,  she  was 
not  bowled  over  by  it.  And  then  he  was  in  the  room, 
making  for  his  mother  with  a  couple  of  strides  and  Su 
sanne,  secure  of  nobody's  notice,  indulged  herself  in  an 
unrestrained  cry  of  laughter  and  ran  out  to  tell  the  news 
below.  Andrea,  at  the  sound  of  the  voice,  stiffened  and 
stood  staring,  and  when  Brooke  actually  entered  the  room 
she  collapsed  into  a  chair,  saying  to  nobody  in  particular: 

"  I'm  dying." 

But  nobody  heard  her  except  Madam  Brooke  and  she 
paid  no  attention,  reasoning,  if  her  lightning  processes 
could  be  called  reason,  that  fainting  girls  must  be  sacri 
ficed  to  giving  Brooke  his  adequate  welcome.  Even  then 
she  wasn't  sure  it  would  be  possible,  Isabel  was  so  be 
fuddled  by  Andrea's  staggering  disclosure.  She  could 
imagine  her  passing  it  over  to  Brooke  at  once,  possibly 
with  marginal  notes  of  the  psychic  communications  she 
had  been  reserving  for  him.  But  Isabel  was  sufficiently 
moved  by  the  presence  of  her  son  to  satisfy  the  most 
exacting  standard.  Brooke  had  passed  his  father  with  a 

108 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        109 

clap  on  the  shoulder,  a  snatch  at  his  hand  and  a  cry  of 
"Dad!  "  that  seemed  to  imply  enough  to  content  Har 
vey,  who  responded  with  something  inarticulate.  Brooke 
strode  on  to  his  mother,  enveloped  her  in  khaki,  escaped 
long  enough  to  give  grandmother  a  kiss  on  each  pink 
cheek  and  her  smiling  lips  and  then  returned  to  his  mother 
for  the  renewed  hug  of  an  impetuous  affection.  He  was 
a  tall,  lithe,  brown  fellow,  with  whitest  teeth,  a  deter 
mined  chin  and  laughter  forever  in  his  eyes,  even  when 
he  thought  he  felt  most  pathetic,  though  this,  too,  was  in 
a  whimsical,  droll  way  of  deprecating  such  mortal  folly. 
For  he,  like  Philip  who  was  gone,  had  a  wistful  sad  streak, 
something  like  the  melancholy  of  the  Celt;  and  yet  the 
eyes  laughed  at  that  also  when  it  came  uppermost.  He 
stood  there  patting  his  mother's  back,  murmuring  silly 
things  to  her  and  laughing,  giving  her  the  outspoken  af 
fection  she  would  not  do  without.  It  was  not  that  Isa 
bel  was  a  tyrannical  woman,  at  least  in  obvious  ways; 
but  she  knew  very  accurately  what  expressed  measure  of 
fondness  would  satisfy  her,  and  the  men  of  her  family 
were  such  good  fellows  they  took  scrupulous  kind  care 
to  give  it  to  her.  Andrea  opened  her  eyes  and  there  he 
was  before  her,  still  clasping  his  mother  and  wordlessly 
convincing  her  she  was  the  only  mother  in  the  world,  the 
top  notch  of  motherhood.  He  was  terrible  to  Andrea  in 
his  beauty,  the  beauty  she  remembered  and  the  strength 
she  exulted  in.  At  once,  in  a  dull  way,  without  any  spe 
cial  wonder  at  it,  she  understood  how  stupid  she  had  been 
to  assume  there  was  one  son  only.  The  picture  fronting 
her  was,  she  saw,  a  resemblance,  not  the  perfect  image  of 
the  man  before  her.  The  likeness  was  there  and  it  was 
marvelous,  but  in  that  instant  she  caught  the  differences 
that  stamped  the  strongest  individuality  on  each.  And 
now  she  was  terrified.  Coming  in  upon  this  battle  ground 


110        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

where  she  had  fought  her  father's  battle  with  a  lying 
tongue,  he  frightened  her,  shocked  her  out  of  the  pale  of 
her  base  excuses;  he  was  a  young  St.  George,  the  militant 
hero  come  to  slay  the  dragon  of  her  lie.  She  turned  in 
the  chair  meaning  to  rise  with  her  back  to  him  and  get 
out  of  the  room  unseen;  but  suddenly  his  eyes  were  upon 
her  and  he  loosed  his  mother  and  cried  out: 

"  How  did  you  come  here?  " 

Andrea  sat  there  trembling  and  could  not  tell  him. 
But  the  others  were  recalled  to  the  scene  he  had  inter 
rupted  and  Isabel,  her  head  high  in  proud  possession  of 
this  living  son,  called  out  so  commandingly  that  he  had 
to  listen,  and,  in  spite  of  his  amazement  over  Andrea,  an 
swer  her  explicit  question. 

"  Brooke,  you  were  with  Philip  that  last  day.  Did 
he  say  anything  to  you  of  any  woman  —  any  girl  —  he 
cared  about?  " 

As  she  said  it,  she  hated  the  sound  of  the  words,  they 
were  so  meagre,  so  unsuited  to  her  son  who  was  immeasur 
ably  exalted  now  into  another  state  of  being.  Yet  the 
nobler  words  she  could  not  use.  Love  —  how  could  she 
pronounce  it  as  between  her  dead  son  and  this  girl  who 
had  testified  to  incredible  things?  And  if  they  could  be 
proven  they  were  the  more  distasteful  to  her. 

"  Why,  yes/'  said  Brooke,  his  eyes  upon  Andrea  in  won 
der  and  delight.  "  He  sent  her  a  message.  I  can't  tell 
you,  of  course.  I'll  wait  and  tell  her." 

Then  he  left  his  mother,  advanced  to  Andrea  and  held 
out  his  hand. 

"  I  didn't  expect,"  he  said,  "  to  see  you  —  yet." 

There  was  multi-colored  feeling  in  his  voice.  Isabel 
gazed  at  him  jealously.  Madam  Brooke,  too,  was  looking 
on  with  a  sympathetic  quickening  of  the  heart.  The 
words  were  nothing.  The  tone  was  eloquence  itself. 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS         111 

They  had  never  heard  his  young  voice  in  such  a  harmony 
of  sweet  appeal.  To  Andrea  it  brought  only  pain.  She 
did  not  take  the  offered  hand.  She  rose,  retreating  from 
him. 

"  I  must  go,"  she  said,  her  face  turned  from  him  to  his 
father  and  then  to  Madam  Brooke.  "  My  father  —  " 

"  Not  at  once/'  said  Harvey  kindly  and  yet  inflexibly. 
"  Brooke,  this  lady,  Miss  Dove  —  that  is,  we  met  her  as 
Miss  Dove  —  she  tells  us  she  and  your  brother  were 
married  just  before  he  went  away." 

Brooke  stared  at  her.  He  seemed  bereft  of  speech. 
His  mother,  watching  him,  gave  a  little  sound  of  approv 
ing  satisfaction.  He  was  taking,  it  meant,  exactly  the 
attitude  she  had  been  obliged  to  take.  It  might  not  be 
that  he  disbelieved  in  Andrea's  strange  announcement. 
But  at  least  he  was  stunned  to  the  point  of  being  unable 
to  express  himself  in  any  manner  whatsoever.  Then  he 
smiled,  in  a  pathetic  way,  and  did  speak. 

"  Why,"  he  sard,  "  that's  —  "  and  he  ended  impetuously, 
"  I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing." 

"  No,"  said  his  mother  triumphantly.  It  seemed  to 
her  they  had  advanced  a  step  now  that  he  had  come  home 
and  taken,  at  the  outset,  the  right  attitude.  "  I  think  we 
are  able  to  say  none  of  us  ever  heard  of  such  a  thing." 

Harvey's  warning  hand  was  on  her  arm. 

"  No,"  he  said,  with  his  equable  courtesy,  "  naturally 
we  hadn't  heard  of  it.  The  marriage  was  said  —  "  and 
then  Andrea's  white  face  so  appealed  to  him  in  the  one 
glance  he  cast  her  that  he  qualified  desperately,  "  The 
marriage  took  place  secretly." 

"  But,"  said  Brooke,  meaning  to  say  nothing  and  yet 
entangled  by  these  threads  of  supposition  that  seemed  to 
be  the  ravelling  of  the  web  of  life,  "  I  should  think  Phil 
^-why,"  he  added,  as  if  he  thought  Phil  himself  might 


112         THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

get  him  somewhere,  "  Phil  sent  his  fob  back,  one  he  picked 
up  in  Paris  and  left  there  with  his  other  things  while  he 
was  flying.  We  were  there  in  Paris  the  day  before  —  " 
he  stopped  and  looked  at  his  mother  as  if  wondering  what 
she  could  bear,  and  his  father  put  in  quietly,  with  that 
persistency  of  his  in  crowding  out  fictional  values  by  the 
stark  old  terms : 

"  The  day  before  he  was  killed." 

"  Yes,"  said  Brooke,  obviously  relieved.  "  We  looked 
the  things  over,  not  more  than  half  a  dozen,  and  Phil 
twisted  up  the  fob  in  a  bit  of  paper,  and  he  said  '  It's  for 
her.' " 

"  Well?  "  said  Harvey,  gently  suggesting. 

"  Why,  yes,"  said  Brooke,  confused.  "  That's  it.  Of 
course,"  he  said,  turning  to  Andrea,  "  it's  for  you.  But 
I  thought  —  "he  laughed  uneasily  and  with  the  bitterness 
of  the  man  to  whom  such  issues  should,  in  common  kind 
ness,  have  been  made  clear.  "  Yes,"  he  added,  "  of 
course  it's  for  you." 

"  But  Phil  didn't  say  it  was  for  her,"  announced  his 
mother,  in  a  clear  demanding  tone. 

Harvey,  his  brows  bent  in  distress,  thought  that,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  knowledge  of  her,  she  sounded  cruel. 

"  No,"  Brooke  owned,  confused,  "  that  is,  not  in  those 
words.  He  said  just  what  I've  told  you,  — '  It's  for 
her.' " 

"And  you  thought — "  said  his  mother. 

"  No,  no,"  put  in  Harvey,  "  don't  go  so  fast.  No  mat 
ter  what  he  thought." 

"  He  might,"  she  continued  obstinately,  "  have  thought 
it  was  intended  for  me." 

Brooke  shook  his  head  ruefully.     He  was  sorry  for  her. 

"  No,"  he  persisted,  "  for  he  said  something  besides.  He 
said:  '  Isn't  there  a  girl  anywhere  I  can  take  something 
back  to,  for  you?  '  " 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS         113 

"  He  thought  —  "  began  Harvey. 

"  Why,  yes/'  said  Brooke,  "  we  both  had  an  impression 
something  was  going  to  happen.  Naturally  we  didn't 
know  which  one  of  us  it  would  be;  but  I  felt  it  and  I 
know  he  did.  So  we  —  well,  we  talked  things  over." 

"But,"  said  his  father,  "did  he  assume  you'd  know 
what  he  meant  when  he  said  what  he  did?  " 

"  Evidently,"  said  Brooke. 

He  was  frowning  over  the  puzzle  of  it. 

Suddenly  Harvey  turned  to  Andrea  where  she  sat  now, 
stark  and  white,  her  hopeless  gaze  bent  on  the  ground. 

"  You  must,"  he  said,  "  have  had  letters  from  Phil." 

She  did  not  answer. 

"  Wouldn't  it  be  possible,"  said  he,  in  the  same  smiling 
courtesy  that  seemed  to  promise  her  gentleness  at  their 
hands,  "  wouldn't  it  give  you  satisfaction  to  let  us  see  two 
or  three  of  Phil's  letters  to  you?  Not  that  it's  necessary," 
he  added,  the  eyes  she  lifted  to  his  for  an  instant  were  so 
terrible  in  their  dark  anguish.  "  Only  it  might  —  it 
would,"  he  ended,  "  undoubtedly  bring  about  a  better  state 
of  feeling  here." 

"  I've  got  it,"  said  Brooke,  to  his  father.  "  He  didn't 
tell  me  where  she  was  because  he  knew  she'd  be  here.  He 
must  have  told  her  to  come.  Though  why  old  Phil 
shouldn't  have  told  me,"  he  added,  "  why  you  shouldn't 
any  of  you  have  told  me —  How  long,"  he  asked  An 
drea,  "  have  you  been  here?  " 

And  still  she  said  nothing. 

"  The  young  lady  is  not  living  here,"  said  his  mother, 
again  that  cruel  triumph  in  her  voice.  "  We  saw  her  for 
the  first  time  a  week  ago.  She  has  called  this  morning  in 
connection  with  some  business  she  called  about  then." 

Again  he  was  off  the  track.  All  these  cross  currents  of 
supposition  were  becoming  too  much  for  Peter  Harvey. 


114        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

He  was  occupied  in  wondering  how  he  could  get  Andrea 
out  of  the  house,  draw  Brooke  off  by  themselves  and  tell 
him  the  uncompleted  story,  when  suddenly  Brooke  turned 
again  to  Andrea  and  asked  her,  in  a  tone  so  gentle  that 
his  mother  noted  it  bitterly: 

"Would  you  mind  telling  me  when  this  happened? 
\Vhen  you  were  married,  I  mean?  " 

Andrea  looked  at  him  with  lack-lustre  eyes,  but  still 
she  said  nothing.  This  was  of  no  set  purpose,  but  it  ap 
peared,  in  that  dull  chamber  of  her  brain  where  memory 
lived,  that  she  had  destroyed  her  own  power  of  ever  speak 
ing  again.  But  his  mother  was  ready. 

"She  has  told  us,"  Isabel  informed  him,  not  cruelly 
now  but  with  a  readiness  of  accuracy.  "  August  ten, 
1917." 

"  Why,"  said  Brooke  loudly  now,  in  his  bewilderment, 
"  that  was  the  day  —  "  He  faced  Andrea  and  spoke  im 
peratively.  "  Wasn't  that  the  day?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  she  heavily,  rousing  herself  from  her  leth 
argy  enough  to  reason  that  this  at  least  was  due  him: 
the  slight  comfort  of  knowing  she  had  not  forgotten  their 
one  day. 

"  Then,"  called  Madam  Brooke,  finding  herself  irra 
tionally  on  the  girl's  side,  "  then,  Brooke,  you  did  know 
about  the  marriage?  " 

He  smiled  a  miserable  little  smile. 

"  No,"  he  said,  "  I  didn't  know  about  the  marriage. 
Only,  that  day  —  " 

There  he  paused,  and  now  he  did  not  look  at  Andrea. 
At  this  instant  Susanne,  the  keeper  of  the  gate,  appeared, 
and  on  her  heels,  as  she  had  come  that  other  day,  Bea 
trice  Hayden,  who  ran  up  to  Brooke  and  with  so  impetu 
ous  a  welcome  that  he  caught  her  in  his  arms  and  frankly 
kissed  her.  She  was  fresh-cheeked  and  breathless.  She 
had  hurried. 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        115 

"  I  said  I  wouldn't  come,"  she  told  Isabel,  laughing  and 
crying  in  a  breath,  "  you  remember.  But  I  saw  him  go 
by  in  a  taxi  and  I  said  to  myself  I'd  go  home  and  wait  till 
I  was  sent  for ;  but  I'd  no  sooner  got  my  things  off  than  I 
put  them  on  again  and  ran  all  the  way.  0  Brooke !  " 

"  And  he's  brought  you  something,"  said  Mrs.  Harvey, 
in  a  clear  tone  that  meant  to  make  itself  heard.  "  Phil 
sent  you  something." 

"  Mother!  "  said  Brooke,  and  no  more. 

Beatrice  stood  perfectly  still,  a  look  of  incredulous 
happiness  over-spreading  her  face.  Then  she  turned  to 
him,  and  spoke  with  a  peculiarly  soft  gentleness. 

"  Really,  Brooke?  may  I  have  it?  " 

He  hesitated. 

"  Is  it  a  letter?  "  she  asked. 

"  No,"  he  said,  "  it  isn't  a  letter.  Should  you  mind, 
Bee,"  he  hesitated,  "  if  I  asked  you  to  wait  a  bit?  I'm 
not  sure  —  " 

There  he  stopped  and  she  thought  she  understood. 
She  smiled  at  him. 

"  I  see,"  she  said.  "  Your  things  haven't  come.  Yes, 
I  can  wait,  so  long  as  it's  not  a  letter.  If  it  had  been  a 
letter,  you'd  have  had  to  stand  and  deliver  or  I  can't  say 
what  I  might  have  done." 

But  she  could  not  hide  her  pleasure.  It  was  a  token, 
it  was  a  message  to  her  who  had  had  none  save  through 
the  facile  hand  of  Miss  Bixby,  and  those  banalities  hurt 
her,  in  their  crudity,  beyond  her  bearing.  At  once  Peter 
Harvey  saw  that  the  scene  must  be  broken  up.  Andrea 
must  be  removed,  Brooke  himself  must  be  given  his  exit 
before  any  of  this  dull  chaos  of  unproven  disaster  fell  upon 
Beatrice  and  wrought  its  evil  on  her  as  it  had  done  on  the 
rest  of  them. 

"  Miss  Dove,"  he  said.    There  wag  something  com- 


116          THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE    WORLDS 

manding  in  his  tone  and  she  looked  up  at  him  with  a  start. 
"  We'll  talk  another  day.  Brooke,  take  Miss  Dove  down 
stairs.  Susanne  will  ring  for  a  taxi.  Miss  Dove  —  " 

There  he  paused,  for  he  simply  did  not  know  how  or  in 
what  words  to  add,  "  Miss  Dove  is  going  home."  Andrea 
rose  and,  without  a  glance  at  any  of  them,  went  falter- 
ingly  to  the  door.  Brooke,  straight,  splendid  and  moving 
with  the  rhythm  of  the  body  in  perfect  condition,  walked 
after  her,  Beatrice  following  him  with  a  gaze  that  loved 
and  mourned  over  his  look,  so  like  that  of  Philip  who  was 
gone.  Brooke  opened  the  door  and  Andrea  passed 
through  and  he  after  her. 

As  soon  as  the  door  had  closed,  Peter  Harvey  turned  to 
Isabel. 

"  We  won't  talk  any  more,"  he  said.    "  Not  just  now." 

"  No,"  said  Madam  Brooke  from  her  corner,  "  no,  Isa 
bel.  Bee  will  hear  all  about  things  in  time.  Not  now." 

But  Isabel  had  no  strength  for  talking.  Her  jealous 
cruelty  had  ebbed,  and  she  sank  into  a  chair  and  began 
to  cry.  No  wonder,  Beatrice  thought.  Would  not  any 
mother  find  her  joy  over  the  son  who  had  returned  shot 
through  with  grief  over  the  other  who  had  gone?  She 
looked  at  Madam  Brooke  for  orders.  The  old  lady  pointed 
a  finger  at  the  door,  and  Bee  slipped  noiselessly  away. 


XII 

BROOKE  followed  Andrea  down  the  stairs  and  when  she 
would  have  gone  out  to  the  street  indicated,  with  a  ges 
ture,  the  little  reception  room  at  their  left.  Mechanically 
she  stepped  inside,  he  followed  her  and  closed  the  door. 
He  stood  before  her,  his  whole  aspect  changed.  He  was  no 
longer  shaken  by  the  impact  of  unexpected  things,  but 
filled  with  the  delight  of  her  as  he  had  been  that  day  to 
gether  in  the  fields.  More  dizzying  delight  indeed  it  was, 
for  her  pallor,  the  wistful  trouble  of  her  face,  had  drawn 
him  to  her  in  a  passion  of  loyalty  compounded  of  love  and 
pity.  And  as  if  the  magnetism  of  his  presence  had  re 
called  her  from  her  poor  estate  of  remorse  and  fear,  she, 
too,  grew  before  his  gaze  into  more  than  her  former  love 
liness.  The  blood  rushed  back  into  her  cheeks  and  her 
eyes  looked  at  him  adoringly.  All  the  troubled  present 
was  swept  away  by  the  one  thought  that  he  was  dead  and 
now  he  was  alive.  As  their  eyes  found  each  other  and 
were  drowned,  each  in  the  other's  mystic  beauty,  so  hands 
and  lips  met.  He  held  out  his  arms  to  her,  and  with  a 
little  sound  of  delight  she  went  to  them,  and  they  stood 
reunited.  Neither  thought  for  an  instant  of  what  should 
keep  them  apart.  The  recognition  of  that  overwhelming 
beauty,  each  of  the  other,  which  is  love,  drugged  and  sol 
aced  them.  He  was  the  first  to  remember. 

"  It  isn't  possible,"  he  said,  and  she  laughed. 

She  thought  he  was  remembering  it  wasn't  possible  he 
had  come  back  and  had  her  there  in  his  arms.  He  put 

117 


118        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

her  away  from  him  and  held  her,  one  taut  hand  on  her 
shoulder. 

"  What  did  they  mean?  "  he  asked  her.  "  About  Phil, 
you  know.  Are  we  all  crazy  together?  " 

Then,  as  if  to  confirm  the  cruelty  of  her  answer,  he  saw 
the  change  in  her,  responsive.  He  was  a  fanciful  boy, 
and  there  flashed  into  his  mind  a  story  he  had  heard  of 
a  woman  rejuvenated  under  a  spell  and,  before  her  lov 
er's  eyes,  falling  back  into  age  again.  So  Andrea,  her 
Maytime  grace,  the  rose  bloom  of  her  loveliness,  seemed 
to  crumble  and  grow  gray.  Again  she  was  the  distraught 
creature  who  had  sat  there  in  the  room  upstairs,  pelted 
by  questions  and  impassive  under  them.  His  hand  closed 
tighter  on  her  shoulder.  He  wondered  afterward  if  he 
shook  her  slightly. 

"  Tell  me,"  he  said,  "  whether  you'd  seen  Phil  before 
that  day  you  saw  me.  Why,  you  must  have  seen  him 
over  and  over,"  he  wondered,  "  for  it  was  that  day  you 
were  married."  And  then  a  solution  came  to  him,  and  he 
caught  at  it,  since  he  must  account  somehow  for  their  lov 
er's  paradise  that  day,  or  cease  believing  in  the  earth  it 
self.  "  Phil  and  I,"  he  said,  in  a  thin  sort  of  voice  he 
had  never  heard  from  his  lips  before,  "  Phil  and  I  look 
alike.  We've  been  taken  for  each  other.  You  didn't  — 
it  couldn't  be  you  took  me  that  day  for  Phil." 

She  shook  her  head.  It  was  impossible  not  to  answer 
that. 

"  But  you  —  "  he  paused  an  instant,  and  then  all  his 
common  sense  of  honesty  rose  up  into  impetuous  accusa 
tion  —  "  but  you  liked  me.  It  was  like  —  it  was  like  the 
world  before  the  flood,"  he  said,  trying  to  find  some  ade 
quate  simile  for  the  idyllic  beauty  of  the  day.  "  You  — 
loved  me,  Andrea.  If  Holton  hadn't  come  so  quickly 
after  we'd  talked  all  those  hours,  we  should  have  said  it. 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        119 

I  should  have  told  you  and  asked  you  who  you  were  and 
—  why,  maybe  this  would  have  happened  then  instead  of 
to-day." 

By  this  he  meant  their  sudden  sweet  rush  together  and 
their  kiss. 

The  color  came  back  into  her  cheeks. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  we  shouldn't  have  said  things.  We 
shouldn't  have  told  our  names.  Because,  you  see,  it  was 
like  a  dream  just  as  it  was.  And  you  said,  you  know  — 
that  was  when  we  saw  your  friend  —  you  said:  '  Wait  for 
me.  I'll  come  back/  " 

"  But  I  couldn't,"  he  assured  her,  and  again  he  took 
her  into  his  arms.  "And  I  couldn't  let  you  know. 
That's  the  disadvantage  of  playing  Garden  of  Eden." 

"  I  knew,"  she  said.  "  I  knew  you'd  been  sent  away. 
You'd  gone  to  France.  You'd  gone  too  quickly  to  find 
me." 

"  It  wouldn't  have  been  possible  to  do  such  fool  things," 
he  said,  "  in  any  time  but  such  as  this.  But  I  did  adver 
tise  for  you." 

"  You  did?  " 

"  Yes,  from  over  there.  In  three  New  York  papers. 
'  Lost,  on  Long  Island,  a  girl.  Property  of  — '  Of 
course  I  gave  a  fictitious  name.  Paris  bankers." 

"  Did  anybody  answer?  " 

"  Forty-nine.     But  not  you." 

"  I  was  too  busy,"  she  said,  "  to  read  personals.  We 
read  the  war  news  then,  you  know.  Anyhow,  I  knew  what 
I  was  to  do.  I  was  to  wait." 

That  recalled  him.  He  stepped  away  from  her  and 
with  distance  between  them  asked  her  sternly: 

"  Wait?  And  did  you  wait?  In  God's  name,  how  did 
you  know  Phil?  " 

At  the  instant  of  saying  it  he  heard  a  little  sound  with- 


120        THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

out,  stepped  to  the  door,  threw  it  open  and  confronted 
Miss  Bixby.  Yet  her  attitude  was  unimpeachable.  She 
did  not  look  in  the  least  like  a  person  who  had  been  lis 
tening,  but  a  person  who  was  on  her  way  into  the  room 
on  some  legitimate  errand. 

"  Excuse  me,"  the  said.  "  How  do  you  do,  Lieutenant 
Harvey?  I  left  Mrs.  Harvey's  address  book  in  the  desk. 
I  was  working  here  this  morning." 

She  went  over  to  the  desk,  took  a  small  book  from  a 
pigeon  hole  and  returned  with  it  to  the  door. 

"  It's  good  to  se«  you  back,  Lieutenant  Harvey,"  she 
announced,  and  went  away  through  the  hall. 

And  immediately  appeared  Susanne,  as  if  she  came  un 
willingly.  Susanne  understood  none  of  these  things,  but 
she  was  with  youth  and  beauty,  and,  as  she  mysteriously 
knew,  the  moment  of  these  two  was  over. 

"  Mrs.  Harvey,"  said  she,  "  asked  me  to  call  a  taxi. 
She  thought  perhaps  you  hadn't  understood." 

"  Never  mind,  Susanne,"  said  Brooke.  His  voice 
trembled,  and  again  Susanne  was  sorry  for  him.  "  I'll 
see  to  the  taxi.  One  minute,"  he  said  to  Andrea.  "  I'll 
tell  mother  and  go  with  you." 

He  ran  upstairs,  and  the  minute  he  passed  the  turn  of 
the  landing  Andrea  stepped  out  and  closed  the  door  after 
her.  She  ran  a  few  paces,  turned  a  corner  and  took  a 
back  street,  and  when  Brooke  came  out,  after  his  glance 
into  the  empty  reception  room,  she  was  gone. 


XIII 

NOT  one  word  was  said  that  night  about  the  happenings 
of  the  afternoon.  Peter  Harvey  forbade  it,  speaking  to 
his  household  severally  and  in  private.  First  he  went  to 
his  wife's  room.  She  was  dressing  for  dinner,  and  turned 
from  her  glass,  in  her  plump  prettiness,  to  greet  him  with 
her  interrogatory:  "Well,  dear?"  He  sat  down  astride 
a  chair,  rested  his  arms  on  the  back  and  frowned  at  her 
reflectively.  She  stood  there  carefully  powdering  her 
round  neck,  with  as  much  absorption,  he  thought,  as  if 
sons  did  not  die  and  other  sons  come  home  to  strange  do 
mestic  turmoil  that  seemed  to  leave  no  footing  for  long 
anticipated  intercourse.  Then  it  occurred  to  him  that  al 
though  she  did  do  her  powdering  with  a  mechanical  nicety, 
she  was  really  tremendously  excited,  the  inmost  mind  of 
her.  She  was  still  moved  at  having  got  her  son  back,  and 
something  in  the  lifted  poise  of  her  head  hinted  that  she 
was  also  exulting  over  having  repulsed  Andrea  ever  so 
slightly  on  the  ground  of  her  presumptuous  folly.  She 
turned  to  him,  feminine  in  every  contour,  sweet  as  mother 
hood  and  yet  angrily  triumphant. 

"  Well/'  said  she,  "  what  do  you  think?  " 

"  Isabel,"  he  returned,  "  I'm  not  going  to  talk  about  it 
any  more  to-night.  And  you're  not  either.  If  Brooke 
asks  questions,  put  him  off." 

But  she  was  too  bent  on  keeping  her  own  impeccable 
stand  to  find  anything  explicit  in  his. 

121 


122         THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

"  He  says,"  she  told  him,  "  when  he  went  downstairs 
again,  she  was  gone." 

"  Did  he?  "  answered  Peter  wearily.  "  I  didn't  hear 
him." 

"  Well,  no,"  said  his  wife,  reconsidering.  "  It  may  not 
have  been  Brooke  that  said  it.  Now  I  think,  it  was  Miss 
Bixby." 

"  Miss  Bixby !  "  he  repeated  sharply.  He  was  about  to 
add,  "  Miss  Bixby's  got  to  go.  She  knows  too  much  about 
spotted  cows."  But  he  refrained.  This  night  of  general 
amnesty  was  not  the  time  to  fight  out  the  question  of  Miss 
Bixby.  "  Isabel,"  he  said,  determined  to  be  heard  and, 
though  it  would  be  a  miracle  in  that  household,  to  be 
obeyed  exactly,  "  you're  to  do  as  I  say.  Hear  me,  old 
lady?  "  he  added,  with  a  poor  attempt  at  lightness.  He 
was  tired  to  the  bone.  One  didn't  have  sons  come  home 
every  day  on  top  of  these  wearing  complications  he  had 
been  fighting  out  until  it  seemed  to  him  life  was  a  psy 
chological  tangle  with  no  solid  ground  to  stand  on  while 
you  tried  to  unsnarl  the  thing.  "  I  mean  it,"  he  said. 
"  We're  not  going  to  talk  until  to-morrow  at  least,  even  if 
it  involves  not  talking  about  Phil.  We're  not  up  to  it, 
any  of  us." 

"  I'm  up  to  it,"  she  returned. 

He  stared  at  her  pink  prettiness.  Never  had  he  seen 
her  in  what  struck  him  as  a  trivial  temper. 

"  I  want  this  thing  settled,"  she  continued,  "  and  settled 
now.  Do  you  expect  me  to  believe,  if  it  had  been  true, 
even  partly  true,  those  who  are  over  there  wouldn't  have 
mentioned  it  through  Miss  Bixby?  " 

"  Oh,"  he  groaned,  "  Miss  Bixby!  " 

"  Yes,"  she  repeated,  "  Miss  Bixby.  She's  told  me 
wonderful  things.  You  must  remember  that." 

"  You  told  them  to  her  first,"  he  said  ineptly.    "  Oh  no, 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS         123 

no,  dear,"  he  added,  as  he  read  her  face.  "  Not  on  pur 
pose  —  of  course  not.  But  you  don't  realise  when  you're 
with  that  kind  of  a  person,  how  much  you  tell." 

She  was  dressed  now  and  standing  before  him  in  her 
shimmering  gray.  It  had  been  a  point  of  belief  with  her 
not  to  wear  black  for  her  son  since  he  was  but  removed 
from  her  a  step.  She  looked  so  complete  and  forceful  in 
her  delicate  perfection  that  Peter  was  the  more  de 
pressed.  She  made  him  feel  crumpled,  not  up  to  the 
game,  and  perhaps  she  saw  that,  for  she  remarked  with 
what  sounded  like  the  indifference  of  triumph: 

"  You'd  better  dress." 

Peter  got  up,  and  was  making  his  ignominious  way  to 
the  door,  but  nearer  the  sphere  of  her  soft  elegance  he 
stopped  and  said  miserably: 

"  Old  lady,  I  don't  know  you.  I  never  —  "  he  hesitated 
—  "I  never've  seen  you  just  like  this." 

"  You've  never  seen  me  fighting  to  free  my  son's  mem 
ory  from  an  unscrupulous  woman,"  she  announced,  in  a 
tone  of  such  hostility  that  again  he  stared  and  wondered. 

"Isabel,"  said  he,  "that  girl  isn't  unscrupulous.  She 
may  be  dotty.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  she  was.  When  I've 
been  tempted  to  imagine  what  she's  been  through  with 
that  old  man  down  there  and  his  one  idea,  I'm  quite 
ready  to  think  she's  dotty.  But  —  "  he  recovered  himself 
with  a  big  effort,  to  call  up  something  strong  enough  to 
pit  itself  against  her  soft  imperturbability,  "  understand 
this.  We're  not  going  to  talk  about  this  to-night.  You're 
not  going  to  have  in  Miss  Bixby  to  stir  up  her  devil's 
broth  —  sicken  Brooke  the  first  night  the  boy's  at  home. 
Understand  me?  I  won't  have  it." 

Without  looking  at  her  he  turned  and  went  to  his  own 
room,  and  there  he  sat  down,  because  his  legs  were  trem 
bling.  This  was  the  first  time  he  had  given  his  Isabel  a 


124        THE  WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

command,  in  all  their  years  together,  and  it  sickened  him 
so  that  he  sat  there  smiling  at  himself  for  a  fool.  But 
smile  as  he  might,  his  legs  revolted. 

To  his  own  naive  astonishment,  Peter  Harvey  was 
obeyed.  The  family  met  at  dinner,  and  though  the  air 
was  subdued  to  the  memory  of  Phil  who  was  in  all  their 
minds,  not  a  word  was  said  in  reference  to  the  strange  hap 
penings  of  the  day.  Brooke  breathed  more  and  more 
freely  as  time  went  on  and  he  saw  an  attitude  had  been 
taken  and  was  intended  to  be  held.  His  mind  was  full  of 
his  brother  and  Andrea,  but  though  he  was  in  a  pain  of 
eagerness  to  penetrate  their  mystery,  it  did  not  seem  as 
if  he  could  bear  to  talk  it  over  in  full  conclave.  They 
were  too  immediate  to  his  heart.  Try  as  he  might  to  ad 
just  himself  to  the  incredible  thing  that  had  been  waiting 
to  leap  on  him  at  the  minute  of  his  return,  it  was  im 
possible  to  do  it,  and  it  was  equally  impossible  to  under 
take  its  unravelling  in  the  complexity  of  the  family  coun 
cil.  Every  time  his  mother  opened  her  lips  to  speak,  he 
found  himself  wincing  with  apprehension.  This  was  after 
they  had  withdrawn  to  the  library,  for  he  had  expected 
respite  while  the  servants  were  in  the  room.  But  Isabel 
was,  Peter  realised,  with  an  amused  surprise,  wifely  duty 
itself.  She  talked  freely  about  Philip  and  asked  wistful 
questions,  but  she  did  not  even  refer  to  Miss  Bixby,  her 
medium  of  communication.  And  the  questions  touched 
only  the  surface  of  her  son's  life  in  France.  There  were 
depths  none  of  them  dared  penetrate  that  first  night,  and 
Brooke  inwardly  thanked  her  for  her  forbearance.  It  was 
near  eleven  when  they  separated.  Isabel  rose  first  and 
they  were  relieved  to  follow  her. 

"  I'm  going  to  stay  down  a  while,"  said  Peter.  "  I've 
got  some  things  to  mull  over." 

That  was  what  he  always  said  when  he  wanted  to  shut 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS         125 

himself  up,  and  everybody  understood.  He  was  to  be  let 
alone. 

"  I'll  come  in  a  minute,"  said  Isabel  to  her  son,  "  and 
have  a  pow  wow." 

Peter  frowned.  It  hadn't  done  any  good  then.  Her 
forbearance  had  been  only  a  truce.  She  was  going  to  the 
boy's  chamber  and,  when  she  had  him  defenceless,  drown 
him  in  the  flood  of  her  communications  and  her  ire  over 
the  claim  of  Andrea.  But  Brooke  didn't  need  saving  at 
this  point.  He  saved  himself.  He  turned  on  his  mother 
the  persuasion  of  his  brown  eyes,  and  before  he  spoke  she 
was  yielding. 

"  Mother,"  he  said,  "  I  can't.  Not  to-night.  I'm  just 
back." 

"  Of  course  he  can't,"  said  Madam  Brooke.  "  Isabel, 
you  ought  to  know  better.  He's  got  to  get  used  to  being 
at  home.  If  I'd  been  through  what  he  has,  I  should  cry 
over  the  pincushion.  You  let  him  have  it  out  alone." 

"  That's  it,  darlin',"  said  Brooke,  turning  to  her  with 
an  eagerness  of  gratitude  that  made  her  press  her  lips  to 
gether  in  a  resolve  she'd  rescue  him,  even  if  she  and  Isa 
bel  went  down  with  the  domestic  ship.  "  You  know,  don't 
you,  grannie?  Mum  knows,  too,  only  she's  such  a  dear 
—  "  He  made  eyes  at  Isabel  again  and  neutralised  the 
ill  effect  of  calling  grandmother  darling.  "  I  can't,  mum, 
I  can't  talk  to-night.  To-morrow  I  shall  be  as  fit  —  you 
can't  think." 

Isabel  gave  him  a  smiling  nod  of  apparent  understand 
ing,  kissed  him  good-night  and  let  him  go.  They  stood 
in  silence  while  he  ran  up  the  stairs  and  then  Peter  went 
to  his  wife  and  kissed  the  top  of  her  head,  lightly  because 
the  hair,  shining  silver,  was  so  beautifully  waved. 

"  Good  girl!  "  he  said.    "  That's  my  darling." 

He  didn't  often  call  her  sweet  names  of  the  highest  po- 


126        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

tency,  but  this  was  meant  to  counterbalance  that  "  dar 
ling  "  of  Brooke's  to  grandmother.  Madam  Brooke  knew 
it  and  smiled  over  the  slyness  of  male  diplomacy.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  Isabel  saw  through  it.  Indeed  she  was 
too  pleased  to  let  herself  question  it  and  went  upstairs 
with  her  mother,  sweetly  chatting  over  everyday  things. 

The  house  had  been  quiet  perhaps  an  hour  and  Peter 
was  still  in  his  library,  sitting  at  the  great  table,  his  legs 
stretched  under  it,  his  eyes  on  the  fire  opposite.  Twice 
he  had  risen  to  throw  on  a  log,  but  he  always  returned  to 
the  same  quiescence.  The  things  he  had  withdrawn  him 
self  to  mull  over  would  remain  untouched  that  night. 
About  a  quarter  after  twelve  the  latch  softly  lifted  and 
Brooke  peered  in.  His  father  gave  him  a  nod  and  a  little 
welcoming  motion  of  the  hand.  Brooke  came  in,  shut 
the  door  quietly,  and  Peter  rose  and  threw  on  a  handful 
of  cones.  They  cast  up  an  impetuous  flame;  it  seemed 
to  be  in  welcome  of  the  boy.  Peter  did  not  go  back  to 
his  table.  He  drew  an  arm-chair  nearer  the  fire  and  indi 
cated  another  to  his  son. 

"  I  rather  thought  you'd  come,"  he  said  quietly. 

Brooke  seated  himself  and  they  began  to  smoke.  Peter 
was  not  addicted  to  his  pipe,  but  he  made  a  guess  that 
they  might  get  on  better  in  that  kindred  relaxation. 
Brooke's  first  question  did  not  surprise  him.  He  found 
he  expected  it.  Even  when  he  sat  there  alone,  he  had 
heard  it  coming. 

"  What's  the  matter  with  mum?  " 

The  latch  of  the  door  lifted  for  the  second  time  and  they 
turned  guiltily.  But  it  was  not  Isabel.  It  was  grand 
mother,  who  shut  the  door  as  softly  as  Brooke  had  done 
and  advanced  composedly.  They  were  on  their  feet,  and 
Brooke  gave  her  his  chair,  which  would  bring  her  between 
them,  and  took  another  at  her  side. 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS         127 

"  No  use,"  said  she,  smiling  at  them  with  the  bravado 
of  the  culprit  unashamed.  "  I  heard  you  slipping  by  my 
door,  you  thief  of  the  world!  and  I  knew  if  I  lay  there 
and  screwed  my  eyelids  down  I  should  burst,  that's  all." 

Peter  gravely  passed  her  the  cigars,  to  indicate  accept 
ance  into  masculine  fellowship,  the  freedom  of  the  city, 
as  it  were,  and  she  understood  and  gave  the  box  a  little 
rejecting  flick. 

"  Sure  you're  dressed  warm  enough?  "  he  asked.  "  That 
wrapper  thing  is  quite  lacy.  What  you  got  on  under  it?  " 

"  Plenty,"  said  she.  "  I  got  up  some  time  ago  and  put 
on  my  undies.  I  knew  that  boy  would  be  coming  down. 
I  knew  you'd  need  me.  How  do  you  expect  to  find  the 
answers  to  questions,  you  poor  men  things,  unless  you  get 
an  old  witch  like  me  to  tell  you?  " 

"  Here,"  said  Peter  contentedly,  "  put  your  feet  on  the 
fender  —  how  can  you  wear  such  foolish  slippers,  you 
silly  women?  —  and  fire  away." 

She  put  her  feet  on  the  fender  and  turned  to  Brooke, 
who  sat  smoking  at  a  mental  distance  from  their  affec 
tionate  fooling. 

"  I  heard  you,"  she  said,  "  when  I  came  in.  You'd  just 
asked  a  question." 

He  roused  himself. 

"  A  question?  "  said  he.  "  What  <T  I  ask?  Oh,  I  asked 
what  was  the  matter  with  mum." 

"  What  makes  you  think  anything  is  the  matter?  "  in 
sisted  the  old  lady,  keeping  her  eyes  on  him. 

"  Oh,"  he  floundered,  "  she's  so  —  different." 

Madam  Brooke  nodded. 

"  Of  course  she's  different,"  said  she.  "  Your  mother 
isn't  living  on  this  earth  just  now.  She  thinks  she's 
rented  a  mansion  in  the  sky,  and  there  she  lives  with 
Philip  and  her  father  and  Aunt  Clarissa,  asking  outrage- 


128        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

ous  questions  and  getting  answers  a  child  couldn't  mem 
orise  if  he  found  'em  in  his  Sunday  School  lesson. 
They're  too  chaotic,  too  sentimental,  too  everything  that 
won't  stand  the  light  of  day." 

Brooke  threw  his  cigar  into  the  fire  and  sat  staring  at 
her. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  you  don't  understand.  I'd  an  idea 
she  wrote  you  a  lot  about  it." 

"  She  wrote  she  had  something  to  tell  me,"  said  Brooke. 
"Just  what  do  you  mean,  grannie?  You  don't  mean  — 
well,  I  knew  they  were  bitten  by  it  in  England.  I  didn't 
think  we'd  got  it  over  here." 

He  couldn't  bring  himself  to  face  it  squarely.  He  felt 
too  much  distaste  for  it. 

"  We  call  it  automatic  writing,"  she  said.  "  That 
Bixby  reads  her  mind  and  hands  her  back  what  she  finds 
there.  It's  all  dressed  up,  I  fancy,  in  pretty  clothes  — 
philosophy,  religion,  faith,  hope  and  charity,  —  chiefly 
faith.  There's  no  limit  to  the  harm  those  near-intellec 
tuals  can  do." 

"  Oh,  Bixby's  a  fraud,"  said  Peter.  "  I  won't  say  she 
reads  your  mother's  mind,  but  she  doesn't  need  to.  She's 
clever  as  the  devil." 

"  She's  not  writing  about  —  Phil?  "  Brooke  asked. 

Harvey  nodded.  There  was  a  great  deal  to  be  ex 
plained  to  Brooke:  his  mother's  absorption  in  the  son  who 
was  lost  to  her,  almost  to  the  dimming  of  her  remem 
brance  of  the  son  who  remained,  —  that  should  be  ex 
plained.  It  had  not  become  imperative  in  the  first  flush 
of  joy  at  Brooke's  coming.  To-morrow,  when  things  be 
gan  to  settle  into  their  ordinary  channels,  he  was  afraid 
it  might. 

"  You  see,  old  boy,"  he  said,  "  your  mother  has  been 
specially  anxious  to  have  this  ready  for  you.  She  wanted 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS         129 

to  hand  it  to  you  as  soon  as  you  got  here:  that  she'd  es 
tablished  communication  with  Phil." 

"  Communication  with  Phil?  " 

He  repeated  it,  not  so  much  awed  as  repudiating. 

"  Yes,"  said  grandmother,  nodding  her  head  like  a  con 
firmatory  fate.  "  Perfectly  shocking,  isn't  it?  " 

And  so  shocking  did  it  seem  to  them  that  not  one  of  the 
three  remarked  the  irony  of  the  word.  If  it  were  indeed 
communication  with  the  beloved  dead,  was  it  shocking? 
The  task  of  explanation  now  passed  into  Madam  Brooke's 
hands ;  perhaps  she  took  it  into  them  as  being  competent. 

"  That's  the  matter  with  your  mother,  Brooke.  She's 
not  herself.  She's  strung  up  to  a  most  awful  pitch,  every 
last  nerve  of  her.  She's  tyrannical,  she's  jealous,  she's 
cross,  she's  a  thousand  things  she  never  was  before,  and  it's 
simply  because  she's  lost  her  head  over  this  infernal  writ 
ing." 

"  Poor  mum !  "  said  he,  looking  into  the  fire  now  and 
trying  to  fit  the  outline  of  this  mother  to  the  mother  he  re 
membered.  "  But  what,"  he  said,  rousing  and  turning  on 
his  father  the  inquiring  glance  of  his  brown  eyes,  "  what 
do  they  say?  "  —  and  he  amended  it,  still  with  distaste  — 
"  what  does  she  think  Phil  says?  " 

"  Well,"  said  Peter  slowly,  meaning  to  put  his  wife's 
intellectual  acumen  in  the  best  light  possible,  "  there's  a 
good  deal  about  spheres  —  and  planes  of  being  —  and  the 
big  guns  he's  seen  over  there.  Shouldn't  you  say  that 
was  it,  Mother  Brooke?  " 

She  nodded. 

"  Yes,"  she  said.  "  And  a  good  many  family  details 
thrown  in,  all  of  them,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  things  Bixby 
could  have  informed  herself  of  pretty  accurately  since 
she's  been  here." 

"  But,"  said  Brooke,  looking  from  one  to  the  other  as 


130         THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

if  he  besought  their  joint  testimony,  "  is  there  anything 
in  it?  Not  as  to  Phil,  you  know.  I  couldn't  fall  to  that 
somehow.  But  this  automatic  writing?  " 

"  There's  something  mighty  queer  in  it,"  his  father 
owned.  "  You  can't  always  account  for  it  by  fraud.  But 
I  don't  believe  you  can  account  for  it  by  —  the  other 
thing."  He  had  a  great  disinclination  to  say  spirits. 
He  couldn't  regard  Phil  as  disembodied  with  the  ease 
Isabel  had  found  in  taking  her  big  leaps.  "And,"  he 
said,  looking  across  to  Madam  Brooke,  "  while  I  could  sit 
down  and  cry  over  their  platitudes,  I'll  be  hanged  if  I 
think  Bixby's  an  entire  fraud." 

"  How  do  you  account  for  her?  "  she  demanded.  "  Re 
member  —  " 

"  Oh,  I  know,"  he  said,  impatient  over  his  own  irresolu 
tion,  "  I  know  all  about  spotted  cows ;  but  I  think  when 
you've  determined  to  blaze  your  way  into  the  other  coun 
try —  the  dark  continent  over  there  —  you  just  lose  your 
bearings.  You  throw  over  the  rules  you've  been  living 
by  here,  and,  if  you  care  enough  about  proving  the  thing, 
you  prove  it,  by  hook  or  by  crook.  You  do  what  you  can 
honestly,  and  when  you  come  to  the  line  where  that  stops 
you  go  on  doing.  And  if  that  means  fraud,  why  fraud  looks 
to  you  only  like  one  of  the  roads  you've  got  to  take.  It's 
no  use  talking,  Brooke.  It's  no  use,  mother.  It's  wrong, 
wrong,  wrong,  this  digging  into  what's  been  so  well  hid." 

He  was  at  least  clarifying  his  own  mind.  He  was 
nearer  seeing  where  he  actually  stood  than  he  had  been 
since  the  beginning  of  his  wife's  credulities. 

"  Well !  "  said  Brooke,  and  fell  into  silence,  thinking. 
"  Well,"  he  repeated,  rousing  himself,  "  I  can't  see  why 
we  shouldn't  have  wireless  to  another  world." 

"  Yes,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  as  if  to  herself,  and  only 
Peter  noticed  because  he  too  had  the  same  thought. 
"  That's  what  the  old  man  said." 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN   THE  WORLDS         131 

"  I  haven't  the  least  doubt  it  might  come,"  said  Brooke, 
"  any  hour,  any  minute.  Only,  not  in  this  muddling  sort 
of  way  through  Miss  Bixby,  or  'most  any  kind  of  a  Miss 
Bixby.  No,  dad,  I'll  believe  in  a  wireless  you  prove  to 
me,  but  not  this  blasted  medium  business.  It  turns  the 
world  upside  down." 

"  That,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  in  a  tone  she  was  deter 
mined  he  should  notice,  because  she  had  read  something 
not  yet  explained  in  his  look  at  Andrea,  "  that  is  pre 
cisely  what  the  old  man  said." 

"  What  old  man?  "  he  asked  indifferently. 

"  You  tell  him,  Peter,"  she  prompted.  "  Tell  him  all 
about  it  from  the  beginning.  It  had  better  be  to-night. 
He'll  have  to  know." 

So  Peter  began  and  told  him  the  story  of  the  man  who 
declared  he  had  discovered  olympium,  who  said  he  had 
had  mysterious  messages  and  who  asked  to  be  financed 
in  order  to  go  on  with  his  researches.  Brooke  listened 
with  a  divided  mind.  His  thoughts  had  gone  off  to  An 
drea,  and  it  was  not  until  his  father  had  finished  and 
Madam  Brooke  took  up  the  tale  that  he  came  alive  to 
the  tremendous  import  it  had  for  him. 

"  The  old  man  your  father  is  telling  you  about,"  said 
Madam  Brooke,  intent  upon  his  face,  "  is  the  father  of 
the  young  woman  who  says  she  was  married  to  your 
brother  on  the  tenth  of  August." 

Brooke  came  upright  in  his  chair.  They  had  dealt 
him  a  shock;  every  muscle  in  his  body  responded  to  it. 

"  Her  father!  "  he  repeated,  out  of  the  daze  that  settled 
on  him  when  he  first  entered  the  house  and  had  never 
really  lifted  since.  "  How  do  you  know?  Who  told  you? 
But  if  she  came  to  you — "  He  lifted  his  hand  to  hia 
forehead  with  a  helpless  gesture  that  told  them  how  tired 
he  was  with  all  these  strangenesses.  Yet  Madam  Brooke 


132         THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

felt  he  had  got  to  get  in  line  with  the  changed  pattern  of 
their  family  life.  They  couldn't  have  mercy  on  him  yet. 
He  must  be  prepared  with  some  measure  of  preconceived 
opinion  before  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  his  mother  with 
her  determination  to  push  them  all  into  the  path  of  her 
new  certainties.  Peter  was  answering. 

"  She  did  come  to  us,"  he  said,  with  a  musing  gravity, 
as  if  he  were  more  anxious  than  anything  to  be  entirely 
just  to  her.  "  She  came  to  borrow  money  for  her  father. 
I  offered  to  go  to  see  him.  She  agreed.  We  went,  your 
mother  and  I,  and  I  offered  to  stake  him  —  rather  gener 
ously,  I  thought — if  he'd  submit  to  certain  tests.  He 
threw  me  down,  much  to  her  disappointment  I  judged. 
And  then,  in  a  week,  she  came  back." 

"  And,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  she  brought  her  story 
of  marrying  Phil  with  her." 

Brooke  turned  from  one  to  the  other  in  an  appeal  they 
understood. 

"  Why,"  said  the  old  lady,  knowing  perfectly  well  he 
meant  to  ask  what  they  thought  of  it,  "  I  can't  help  be 
lieving  in  the  girl.  It's  her  eyebrows,  I  dare  say,  the 
way  she  looks  at  you.  I  never  saw  anything  so  honest 
in  my  life.  Besides,  it's  just  like  Phil.  It  would  be  just 
like  you.  You're  vagabonds,  both  of  you,  without  the 
slightest  idea  the  Garden  of  Eden  was  laid  out  in  build 
ing  lots,  with  jitneys  and  plumbing,  a  million  years  ago. 
You'd  do  it,  too,  Brooke,  you  know  you  would.  You'd 
pick  up  a  girl  out  of  nowhere  and  marry  her  any  kind  of 
an  old  way  and  think  if  that  wasn't  the  usual  style  it  ought 
to  be." 

She  was  guiltless  of  insinuation,  but  the  shaft  struck. 
He  colored,  dark  betraying  red,  and  she  saw  his  hands 
clench  on  the  arms  of  the  chair.  "  Oho !  "  thought  this 
knowing  old  lady,  "  you've  been  up  to  something  your- 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS         133 

self.  What  is  it,  dear  boy?  Anyway  don't  you  let  your 
mother  know  till  she's  got  her  temperature  down  a  little 
after  this  Andrea  business."  Now  his  father  was  regard 
ing  him  keenly ;  a  summons,  it  seemed  to  be,  recalling  him 
from  any  inward  comments  he  might  be  making,  to  give 
direct  testimony. 

"  Brooke,"  he  said,  "  did  Phil  ever  speak  to  you  of  this 
girl?  " 

Brooke  could  answer  that  with  a  perfect  candor  need 
ing  no  added  tinge  of  plausibility. 

"  No,  father,  never." 

"  You  spoke  of  a  message." 

Brooke  hesitated  a  moment  before  replying.  Then  he 
answered  slowly,  as  if  weighing  his  words  and  in  a  fashion 
that  made  grandmother  say  "  oho  "  once  more  to  her 
clever  inward  self. 

"  He  did  send  his  fob.  It  was  just  as  I  told  you.  Of 
course,"  he  added  irritably,  "  it  was  as  I  told  you."  It 
began  to  seem  to  him  that  he  might  be  tempted  to  shade 
some  statement  in  Andrea's  favor  and  that  he  ought  not 
to  be  defending  himself  at  the  outset  before  he  had  to. 
"  He  simply  said  it  was  for  her.  Of  course  I  didn't  ask 
who  it  was  he  meant." 

"  You  thought  you  knew,"  said  Peter.  "  Just  as  your 
mother  did." 

He  nodded. 

"  You  thought  it  was  Bee." 

"  Yes,"  said  Brooke,  "  I  did  think  it  was  for  Bee.  I'd 
got  so  used  to  thinking  —  "  and,  not  knowing  where  the 
sentence  would  carry  him,  he  ended  lamely,  "  Of  course  I 
thought  he  meant  Bee." 

"  And  yet,"  said  his  father,  with  no  definite  object  but 
evidently  hoping  that,  if  they  went  beating  along  on  a 
track  of  question  and  answer,  they  should  get  somewhere, 


134        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

"  yet  you  were  perfectly  ready  to  give  it  to  Andrea  Dove. 
And  you  refused  it  to  Bee." 

"  But  don't  you  see,"  said  Brooke,  "  when  you  told  me 

—  or  mum,  whichever  it  was  —  about  her  and  Phil,  why, 
of  course  I  knew  what  he  must  have  meant.    He  meant 

—  well,"  he  added  lamely,  "  he  meant  the  only  one  he 
could  mean." 

"  But  if  you'd  never  heard  of  her,"  pursued  Peter  inex 
orably,  as  much  to  himself  as  to  his  son,  "  doesn't  it  seem 
to  you  there  was  something  peculiar  in  his  giving  you  that 
message  without  mentioning  a  name?  " 

"  Of  course  it's  peculiar,"  said  Brooke.  "  It's  all  pe 
culiar.  It's  damnable,  any  way  you  take  it.  But  there 
she  was  in  the  room,  and  you'd  told  me  about  her  and 
Phil  and  she  didn't  deny  it,  and  of  course  I  knew  it  was 
so." 

This  last  was  in  a  tone  of  such  despair  that  grandmother 
put  out  a  hand  toward  him  and  then  drew  it  back.  Let 
the  boy  keep  the  solitude  of  his  unspoken  misery. 

"  You  see,"  she  said  to  Peter,  "  he  has  the  same  impres 
sion  of  the  girl  you  and  I  have.  It  may  be  the  eyebrows 
again;  but  he's  perfectly  sure  she's  telling  the  truth." 

"  Why,  of  course,"  said  Brooke,  as  if  he  were  outraged 
at  their  even  stating  it,  "  of  course  she's  telling  the  truth. 
What  else  could  she  do?  " 

"  And  yet,"  said  Peter,  pursuing  his  own  reasoning, 
trying  to  force  his  mind  into  the  dull  paths  of  data  where 
it  was  loath  to  go,  "  there  were  some  strange  things  about 
it.  When  she  first  came,  she  said  it  was  because  your 
mother  had  given  money  to  psychical  research.  When  she 
came  to-day  she  told  us  she  had  married  Phil.  Wouldn't 
it  seem  she'd  have  told  us  that  at  first?  I  don't  say 
there's  deception  there.  Only  not  quite  out  in  the  open, 
not  quite  straight." 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS         135 

To  grandmother,  looking  at  Brooke,  he  had  turned  so 
sodden  with  weariness  or  emotion  that  she  got  up  and  put 
her  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"  Bed,  dear,"  she  counselled.    "  You're  tired  out." 

He  looked  up  at  her,  smiling,  but  the  brown  eyes  piti 
ful. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  I'm  all  in.  Night,  dad.  I  shall  be 
fit  again  in  the  morning." 

He  got  to  the  door  and  had  his  hand  on  the  latch,  and 
suddenly  life  and  eagerness  came  back  into  his  face. 

"  Why,"  he  said,  "  if  you've  been  there,  you  know  where 
she  lives." 

"  Yes,"  said  his  father.  "  You're  right.  We'll  go  round 
there  in  the  morning." 

Brooke  opened  the  door  and  took  his  cautious  way  up 
stairs.  But  grandmother,  while  she  waited  a  discreet 
moment  before  following,  thought  wisely: 

"  Yes,  somebody  will  go  there  to-morrow,  but  it's  you, 
my  boy,  and  you'll  take  good  care  to  go  alone.  Now 
why,  dear  laddie,  why?  " 

Peter  came  to  her  to  say  good-night,  and  watch  her  up 
the  stairs  to  see  she  didn't  step  on  her  draperies  or  do 
any  of  those  disconcerting  things  the  old  are  supposed,  by 
the  somewhat  less  old,  to  be  perversely  liable  to. 

"  Queer  world,  mother,  isn't  it?  "  he  whispered. 

"  Yes,  Peter,"  said  she,  turning  upon  him  a  glance  full 
of  that  speculative  humor  which  is  one  of  the  compensa 
tions  of  long  life.  "  If  I  let  myself  try  to  unriddle  the 
riddle,  I  could  go  as  crazy  as  that  old  Dove." 


XIV 

ANDREA  had  gone  home,  her  feet  winged.  On  her  en 
trance,  as  she  had  before  and  from  an  excitement  a  mil 
lion  times  more  acute,  she  began  calling: 

"Father!  father!" 

At  once  he  appeared  from  the  laboratory,  with  no  ex 
pectation  in  his  air,  only  a  weary  waiting  on  her  will  that 
struck  her  as  sickening  in  its  lassitude.  She  went  up  to 
him  and  grasping  his  arm,  as  if  she  steadied  him  to  listen, 
looked  up  into  his  face. 

"Daddy,"  she  said,  "I'm  in  dreadful  trouble.  We 
must  go  away  from  here." 

"  Of  course  wre're  in  trouble,"  said  he.  "  Our  trouble's 
the  same,  those  people  backing  and  filling,  refusing  what 
they  could  give  me  as  well  as  not,  and  forcing  me  off  this 
earth.  That's  what  they're  doing  —  crowding  me  off  the 
earth." 

She  was  shaking  with  nervous  misery.  In  another  mo 
ment,  she  felt,  her  teeth  would  begin  to  chatter  and  she 
might  go  all  to  pieces  in  that  humiliating  crisis  of  shattered 
nerves.  Her  grasp  on  his  arm  tightened.  She  seemed  to 
herself  not  so  much  upholding  her  own  body  as  keeping 
him,  by  that  reminding  pressure,  subject  to  the  earth  and 
its  clean  sanities  and  in  a  measure  responsive  to  her  will. 

"  Daddy,"  she  said,  "  listen  to  me.  We've  got  to  go 
away." 

"  You  said  that  before,"  he  reminded  her  fretfully. 
"  Where  could  we  go?  What  could  we  go  on?  You  took 

136 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS         137 

a  long  time  to  practise  that  stenography  of  yours,  but  you 
don't  try  to  find  a  job.  I  send  you  to  these  people,  to 
get  them  to  finance  me,  and  you  only  bungle  it.  You 
never'll  have  such  a  chance  again  as  long  as  you  live. 
There's  the  woman  as  credulous  as  any  born  fool. 
There's  the  man  as  soft  as  putty  over  her.  You  got  her 
at  the  start.  Work  through  her  and  you've  got  him." 

"  But,  daddy,  I  did/'  she  cried,  in  an  agony  of  abase 
ment.  "  I  worked  on  them  both.  I  was  honest  at  the 
start,  for  I  thought  I'd  only  to  tell  them  what  you'd  done, 
for  them  to  help  us.  And  when  he  wanted  proof  and  you 
wouldn't  meet  them  in  that  —  oh,  I  know,  dear,  I  know 
you  couldn't  —  I  lied  to  them,  and  maybe  that  would  have 
succeeded;  but  I  can't  lie  any  more,  for  he's  come  back." 

He  stared  at  her,  his  brows  bent. 

"  Who  has  come  back?  "  he  asked. 

"  Father/'  she  reminded  him,  her  grasp  tightening  on 
his  arm  and  her  face  pinched  and  eager  in  her  desire  to 
recall  him  from  that  vague  region  where  he  lived  with 
the  imaginings  of  his  own  mind,  what  he  indubitably 
knew  side  by  side  with  what  he  wanted  to  believe,  "  don't 
you  remember  I  told  you  about  the  day  I  took  the  long 
walk  to  the  beach  and  how  the  man  came  down  —  from 
heaven,"  she  added  the  last  in  the  extremity  of  her  pas 
sion  —  "  and  I  thought  he  was  their  son  who  died?  " 

"  No,"  said  he  blankly,  "  I  don't  remember  that." 

"  But  it  was  so,"  she  cried,  with  a  sharpness  of  insist 
ence  that  seemed  at  last,  little  by  little,  to  be  recalling 
him.  "  And  because  he  was  dead  and  you  threatened  me 
with  your  dying,  too,  and  I'd  nothing  to  lose  —  for  with 
him  dead  and  you  dying,  what  difference  did  it  make 
about  me?  —  I  told  my  lie.  I  said  I'd  been  married  to 
him,  and  begged  them  to  help  me." 

She  stopped,  for  he  was  not  attending.    His  eyes  had 


138        THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

that  inward  look  she  knew  so  well,  when  he  was  pursuing 
the  phantom  of  scientific  guesswork  farther  and  farther 
into  the  heart  of  the  universe.  The  varying  look  of  his 
face  —  varying  but  always .  tending  toward  the  wildness 
of  downfall  and  decay  —  had  kept  her  lately  in  a  state 
of  strained  expectation;  but  now  she  felt  herself  arrested, 
stopped  by  that  inner  warder  of  the  mind  that  guards  its 
sanity.  It  told  her,  this  unseen  guardian,  that  it  would 
not  do  for  her  to  get  so  frightened.  She  was  the  keeper 
not  only  of  her  own  mind  but  his.  She  must  not  let  her 
self  explore  these  strange  purlieus  of  disordered  mental 
action.  She  must  deal  with  mortal  things  as  the  con 
course  of  mortal  minds  had,  up  to  this  time,  decreed  mor 
tal  things  to  be.  And  while  she  was  standing  there  coun 
selling  her  wild  heart,  her  remorseful  mind,  there  sounded 
a  knock  at  the  door.  Her  father  at  once  made  as  if  to 
escape  the  pressure  of  her  hand  on  his  arm,  preparatory 
to  turning  away  to  his  own  room;  but  she  held  him  still. 

"  Be  quiet,"  she  whispered.  "  Don't  move  or  he'll  hear 
you." 

"  Who'll  hear  us?  "  he  asked. 

She  did  not  answer,  but  stood  there,  one  hand  on  his 
arm  the  other  at  her  heart.  Brooke  Harvey,  she  thought, 
had  got  her  address  from  his  father,  and  he  had  come,  in 
the  wealth  of  his  divine  kindness,  to  take  her  once  more 
into  his  arms  and  tell  her  the  past  was  still  alive. 

"  Why,"  said  Andrew  Dove,  in  a  sudden  comprehension, 
"  it's  some  of  those  people.  Who  else  is  there  to  come 
here?  Let  them  in.  If  you  won't,  I  will." 

He  broke  away  from  her  and  made  a  step  toward  the 
door,  but  she  slipped  before  him  in  the  desperate  resolve 
that  only  she  must  meet  Brooke  Harvey.  She  would  tell 
him  to  go  away,  and  forbid  him  ever  to  come  there  again. 
Just  as  the  knocker  fell  in  a  second  double  rap,  she  opened 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        139 

the  door  and  faced,  not  Brooke  Harvey  but  a  trim  figure 
in  black.  Andrea  involuntarily  fell  back  a  step  and  Miss 
Bixby  took  advantage  of  the  interval  to  put  her  foot  over 
the  sill. 

"  May  I  see  your  father,  Miss  Dove?  "  she  asked,  in 
the  most  commonplace  manner,  and  Andrea  shut  the  door 
behind  her  and  followed  her  in. 

Andrew  Dove  stood  there,  his  head  erect,  listening. 
When  Miss  Bixby  walked  up  to  him,  he  regarded  her  with 
palpable  disappointment,  turned  and  took  a  pace  toward 
the  laboratory.  But  she  stepped  in  front  of  him.  Her 
manner  was  as  contained  as  her  appearance  and  her  voice. 

"  Mr.  Dove,"  said  she,  "  I've  a  proposition  to  make  to 
you." 

He  looked  at  Andrea  inquiringly,  and  she  explained : 

"  This  is  Mrs.  Harvey's  secretary." 

"  Bixby,"  said  the  lady.    "  My  name  is  Bixby." 

At  Andrea's  mention  of  the  Harveys,  interest  reawak 
ened  in  him.  He  looked,  Andrea  thought,  almost  as  he  had 
when  he  met  the  Harveys  themselves.  He  was  curt  in 
his  excitement. 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  what  is  it?  You've  a  message  for 
me?" 

"Not  exactly,"  she  said,  holding  him  by  the  tempo 
rising  concession,  not  for  a  moment  risking  his  interest 
through  denial.  "  Pardon  me,  Miss  Dove,  but  it's  rather 
a  long  story." 

This  to  Andrea,  who  had  recovered  her  own  composure, 
was  a  tentative  request  to  be  allowed  a  sympathetic  scene 
for  what  she  had  come  to  say.  Andrea  set  a  chair  for 
her. 

"  Miss  Bixby  wants  to  say  something  to  you,  father/' 
she  told  him.  It  was  as  if  she  warned  him  that  she  had 
had  enough  of  these  problematic  scenes  touching  the  Har- 


140        THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

veys,  and  that  he  must  stay  and  take  his  share  of  this, 
whatever  it  might  prove.  "  Sit  down,  please,  Miss  Bixby. 
Father  and  I  have  a  way  of  dropping  down  here  at  the 
table." 

Miss  Bixby  sat,  and  Andrea  also,  but  Dove  remained 
standing,  holding  his  chin  meditatively,  his  eyes  upon 
Miss  Bixby.  She  began  in  a  perfectly  commonplace  man 
ner. 

"  I  know  all  about  you,  Mr.  Dove.  As  your  daughter 
told  you,  I  am  Mrs.  Harvey's  secretary,  and  you  do,  you 
know  —  I  mean,  you  do  get  to  know  things  that  happen 
in  the  families  where  you're  secretary.  Besides,  Mrs. 
Harvey  runs  on.  She  never  conceals  anything,  and  she 
never's  had  anything  to  conceal." 

There  was  no  implied  censure  in  this.  It  was  offered 
quite  impersonally.  She  did  not  seem  to  be  giving  away 
her  employer  with  any  intent:  only  stating  the  indubi 
table  fact. 

"  I've  been  doing  automatic  writing  for  her,"  she  con 
tinued,  and,  turning  to  Andrea  she  remarked  interroga 
tively,  "  Perhaps  you  know?  " 

It  had  been  mentioned;  but  Andrea  thought  all  Miss 
Bixby  might  be  entitled  to  was  an  acquiescent  silence,  and 
the  secretary  went  on,  now  to  Mr.  Dove. 

"  I  know  about  your  discovery.  I  know  what  you  want 
to  do.  You  want  to  establish  communication  with  an 
other  world.  I've  heard  them  talking.  You  do,  you 
know.  In  fact,  Mrs.  Harvey's  told  me  every  last  word. 
Now  you  won't  get  any  money  out  of  them.  Never  in 
the  world.  The  son's  come  home,  and  just  as  sure  as  you 
live  he  and  his  father'll  stand  in  together  and  make  up 
their  minds  it's  all  bad  for  Mrs.  Harvey,  and  they'll  ditch 
it  somehow.  You  won't  get  a  thing." 

Andrew  Dove  turned  his  perplexed  glance  on  Andrea. 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        141 

"  You  said,"  he  began,  "  the  son  was  dead." 

"That's  only  a  part  of  the  story,"  she  reminded  him. 
"  Listen  to  Miss  Bixby  now.  You  shall  have  mine  an 
other  time." 

But  could  he?  her  sick  heart  asked  her.  Could  his  poor 
mind  be  expected  to  assort  the  parti-colored  bits  of  her 
life  and  arrange  them  in  the  mosaic  of  credibility  she  her 
self  almost  doubted?  She  had  a  question  of  her  own  to 
ask. 

"  Is  it,"  she  said,  turning  to  Miss  Bixby,  "  bad  for  Mrs. 
Harvey?  " 

"  Oh,  unquestionably,"  said  the  secretary  promptly. 
"  Bad  as  it  can  be." 

"  Then  why,"  asked  Andrea,  feeling,  as  she  had  before, 
a  warm  championship  of  the  Harveys,  "  why  are  you  do 
ing  it?  " 

Miss  Bixby  stared  at  her  in  a  frank  surprise,  as  if  she 
wondered  how  anybody  could  be  so  little  of  a  psychical 
mathematician  as  to  refuse  to  put  two  and  two  together 
and  use  the  four  they  made. 

"  Why,"  she  said,  "  if  you're  working  for  anybody,  you 
do,  you  know.  You  have  to.  How  long  do  you  think 
I'd  have  kept  my  jobs  if  I  hadn't  got  inside  and  found  out 
what  they're  thinking  and  what  they  want  me  to  help  'em 
think?  That's  what  you're  there  for,  you  know.  The 
letters  and  the  accounts  —  they're  only  the  smallest  part 
of  it.  Only  you  mustn't  go  too  far.  I  lost  three  jobs  — 
nice  jobs  they  were  —  because  I  went  too  far.  I  knew  too 
much.  They  couldn't  put  on  any  side.  But  I  suppose 
they  only  thought  it  was  I  that  got  too  fresh." 

The  last  sounded  so  frank  and  was,  indeed,  so  devoid 
of  "  side  "  that  it  seemed  to  lubricate  her  for  the  moment, 
and  make  her  less  a  complete  Miss  Bixby  of  black  and 
white  surfaces  and  neat  considered  movements  as  a  mor- 


142        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

tal  subject  to  the  variability  of  mortal  minds.  But  she 
recovered  herself  immediately  and  dropped  again  into  her 
concise,  evidently  preconceived  form  of  statement. 

"  Now,"  she  said,  turning  to  Mr.  Dove,  "  my  time  is 
short  there,  just  as  yours  is."  And  as  he  merely  regarded 
her  with  a  puzzled  wistfulness  verging  on  displeasure,  she 
answered  the  question  he  might  presumably  have  put. 
"  And  for  the  same  reason.  While  Mrs.  Harvey  can  lay 
her  hands  on  me,  she's  going  to  make  me  do  my  automatic 
writing;  and  they've  decided,  the  rest  of  them,  that  it's 
bad  for  Mrs.  Harvey." 

Then,  caught  by  a  phrase,  he  did  put  a  question. 

"  I  suppose,"  he  said,  "  you're  what  they  call  a  me 
dium." 

"  No,  sir,"  said  she  emphatically,  "  not  on  your  life. 
I'm  a  stenographer;  but  if  I  couldn't  do  automatic  writing 
—  well,  I  should  smile." 

She  was  fixing  his  attention  more  and  more. 

"  Then,"  said  he,  "  you  are  a  fraud." 

"  No,  sir,"  she  said  again,  and  evidently  in  a  perfect 
sincerity.  "  I'm  as  honest  as  you  are.  Why,  Mr.  Dove, 
if  you  think  there's  nothing  in  automatic  writing  you're 
'way  off.  It's  easy  to  do  it,  easy  as  pie.  But  how  I  do 
it,  I  know  no  more  than  —  the  dead." 

Her  voice  sank  a  little  here  and  Andrea  had  a  sense 
that,  although  the  dead  were  part  of  her  trade  outfit,  she 
still  felt  scrupulous  about  invoking  them. 

"Do  you  mean,"  asked  Mr.  Dove,  in  a  tone  of  loud 
solemnity  that  startled  Andrea,  as  indicating  he  took  the 
woman  and  her  work  with  undue  seriousness,  "  do  you 
mean  you  never  resort  to  fraud?  " 

"  Of  course  I  resort  to  fraud,"  said  Miss  Bixby  pa 
tiently.  "You  do,  you  know.  You  have  to.  Why,  if 
Mrs.  Harvey  said  something  that  I  could  put  into  my  next 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        143 

message  and  get  her  into  a  good  frame  of  mind,  you  know, 
shouldn't  I  do  it?  Of  course  I  should.  It's  like  using  a 
bridge  when  you  want  to  cross  a  stream.  It's  all  mixed  in 
together,  what  I've  heard  'em  say,  what  I  know  about  the 
family  and  the  rest  that  I  can't  account  for.  But  use 
what  you've  got,  use  everything,  I  say.  Just  to  get  to 
going.  Why,  I'll  warrant  you  would  yourself,  when 
you're  making  some  of  your  experiments.  If  you  wanted 
a  light  to  see  something  by,  and  your  electricity  gave  out, 
you'd  throw  in  anything  you'd  got  to  make  a  blaze,  like 
that  old  potter  we  used  to  read  about  in  school  that  burnt 
up  everything  he  had  to  fire  his  clay.  You  do,  you  know." 

Dove  groaned,  and  broke  out  in  a  phrasing  that  was 
half  ridiculous  and  half  terrifying  to  Andrea,  it  sounded 
so  Biblical  and  at  the  same  time  like  stilted  novels  and  the 
play. 

"  Woman,  why  do  you  come  here  to  me?  " 

Perhaps  it  was  queer  to  Miss  Bixby  also  to  be  ad 
dressed  by  her  generic  name,  for  her  tight  mouth  did  re 
lax  a  little. 

"  That's  it,"  said  she.  "  Why  do  I?  Now  you  listen, 
both  of  you,  and  I'll  tell  you."  She  glanced  from  one  to 
the  other  and  saw  they  were  indeed  waiting  on  her  words. 
"  You,"  she  said  to  Mr.  Dove,  "  are  entirely  original. 
Haven't  I  heard  it  over  and  over  again  since  the  Harveys 
came  here,  how  you'd  discovered  something  new  to  science 
and  how  you  were  perfectly  sure  you're  on  the  road  to  a 
wireless,  we'll  call  it,  between  heaven  and  earth?  Mr. 
Harvey  took  to  it,  as  I  understand,  from  the  first.  He 
says  the  other  things  are  half  baked,  trances  and  auto 
matic  writing  and  the  whole  show  that  depends  on  any  sort 
of  medium.  Even  the  old  lady,  Madam  Brooke,  says  it'll 
come  your  way,  if  it  comes  at  all,  and  her  head's  as  hard 
as  a  nut.  Harder,  for  a  nut  you  can  crack,  and  I  don't 


144        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

believe  you  could  make  a  dent  in  her  if  you  took  a  pile 
driver." 

"  Then  why,"  said  Dove,  his  face  distorted  in  a  passion 
of  eagerness,  "  if  they  believe,  won't  they  help  me?  " 

"  Because  you  won't  play  their  way,"  she  said  quietly. 
"  I  understand  why.  You  won't  because  you  can't. 
There's  just  enough  fraud  in  what  you're  doing,  as  there 
is  in  what  I  am,  so  you  can't  come  out  in  the  open  and 
offer  to  give  yourself  up  to  the  third  degree.  Why,  some 
times  when  I  see  that  old  lady  sitting  by  the  fireplace, 
looking  at  me  with  that  look  of  hers  while  I'm  writing  for 
Mrs.  Harvey,  I  feel  as  if  next  minute  she  might  begin 
grilling  me  and  the  cold  shivers  run  down  my  back." 

She  was  becoming  more  and  more  expansive,  this  com 
posed  creature  of  the  opaque  surfaces  and  resolutely  still 
manner,  and  Andrea  found  herself  wondering  if  this  were 
the  real  woman,  relieved  to  allow  herself  the  natural  out 
let  of  words,  and  whether  her  decorous  quiet  had  been  part 
of  the  armor  she  assumed  for  her  professional  duties,  to 
know  all  and  yet  to  avoid  being  "  too  fresh."  Andrea 
doubted  whether  all  this  could  interest  her  father.  She 
was  not  sure  he  quite  took  it  in  until  he  surprised  her  by 
answering  with  an  acquiescent  sadness: 

"  Yes,  that's  it.  I'm  in  the  midst  of  chaos.  I  know  I'm 
right,  but  I  can't  prove  it.  If  I  tried,  they'd  laugh  at  me." 

"  That's  it,"  said  Miss  Bixby  promptly.  "  And  I  tell 
you  again  we're  in  the  same  box  and  we've  got  to  make  an 
alliance,  offensive  and  defensive.  Where,"  she  said,  so 
briskly  that  he  started  and  looked  at  her  apprehensively, 
she  was  bringing  him  down  with  such  a  jerk  to  the  concrete 
terms  he  hated,  "  where  is  your  stuff?  the  thing  you've 
discovered?  " 

He  seemed  to  feel  obliged  to  answer  her. 

"  In  there,"  he  said,  in  a  low  tone,  turning. 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        145 

She  was  on  the  point  of  rising. 

"  Want  to  show  it  to  me?  "  she  asked. 

He  shook  his  head. 

"  Want  to  let  me  see  the  flashes  you  get?  You  let  them 
see  it.  Mrs.  Harvey  said  you  did." 

Again  he  shook  his  head  and,  after  a  moment's  thought 
ful  consideration  of  him,  she  cheerfully  acquiesced. 

"  Very  well,"  she  said.  "  Suit  yourself.  Sometime  you 
will.  Now  this  is  what  I  have  to  propose.  I'll  give  up 
the  Harveys  —  it's  only  a  question  of  time  before  they 
give  up  me  —  and  you  and  your  daughter  and  I'll  go  into 
partnership  together.  Ever  do  anything  yourself?  "  she 
inquired  of  Andrea,  turning  upon  her  with  a  brisk  prac 
ticality. 

"  Do  anything? "  repeated  Andrea.  "  I've  learned 
stenography  and  typewriting.  I  need  practice.  I  can't 
work  very  fast." 

"  No,  no,"  said  Miss  Bixby,  with  unbroken  good  humor. 
"  Thought  reading,  automatic  writing,  anything  of  that 
sort." 

"No,"  said  Andrea,  not,  she  hoped,  showing  her  re 
pugnance  to  the  imputation.  "  Never." 

"  Well,"  said  Miss  Bixby,  "  no  doubt  you  could.  Some 
day  we'll  sit  down  together  and  you  can  try.  The  first 
thing  we'll  do  is  to  put  a  card  in  the  papers ;  but  only  after 
we've  got  you  pretty  well  written  up,  Mr.  Dove,  your 
theory,  you  know,  that  communication's  coming  through 
science  if  it  comes  at  all.  We  can  manage  that.  We'll 
have  you  interviewed,  photographs  of  this  place  —  it's 
a  dandy  place  for  a  big  publicity  article  —  and  then  the 
card,  advertising  automatic  writing  and  demonstrations  of 
olympium,  whatever  they  are." 

He  took  fire.  The  blood  ran  into  his  face  and  his  head 
was  high. 


146        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  he  said,  "  you  are  propos 
ing  an  advertising  fraud  to  me,  a  man  that  stands  as  I  do, 
a  man  whose  name  is  going  down  —  " 

There  he  stuck,  in  inarticulate  anger,  and  she  inter 
rupted  him  with  a  quiet  practicality  that  seemed  to  prick 
his  heroic  decencies. 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Dove,  I  know  all  about  it.  You've  got  the 
old  idea  of  the  scientist  in  his  laboratory,  dying  over  his 
retorts,  and  then  the  world  finding  out  he  was  the  biggest 
toad  ever  and  carving  his  name  on  friezes  of  libraries  and 
museums.  But  it  won't  work.  The  world's  different 
now,  and  it  won't  wash.  There's  not  a  darned  thing  you 
can  get  now  without  publicity." 

Her  qualifying  word  she  used  with  such  a  simple  belief 
in  its  value  that  it  seemed  to  fit  her  decorous  ensemble. 
She  was  convincing  in  her  single-mindedness,  and  she  went 
on  with  an  added  earnestness  of  persuasion  toward  the 
course  she  was  offering  them  in  good  faith,  —  for  was  it 
not  to  their  advantage  as  to  hers? 

"  Now  say  we  put  our  card  in  the  paper,  we  start  out, 
you  demonstrating  your  scientific  theory  and  piecing  it 
out,  when  you  come  to  breaks  in  it,  with  —  whatever  you 
know  will  piece  it  out.  Science  can't  be  worth  much  if  it 
hasn't  got  its  own  particular  frauds,  same  as  everything 
else.  There's  the  right  side  of  things  and  there's  the 
wrong  side.  If  there  wasn't  a  wrong  there  wouldn't  be  a 
right.  And  I  do  the  automatic  writing.  We'd  rake  in 
money  hand  over  fist.  And  you'd  be  at  your  invention, 
don't  you  see,  nights  and  Sundays.  Why,  you'd  be  made, 
jve'd  all  be  made." 

Mr.  Dove  walked  to  the  door  and  opened  it. 

"  Andrea,"  he  said,  "  tell  her  to  go." 

Miss  Bixby  rose,  with  a  composed  readiness.  She  was 
so  used  to  secretarial  obedience  that  any  form  of  disci 
pline  came  easily  to  her. 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        147 

"There's  just  one  thing  more,  Mr.  Dove/'  she  said. 
"If  your  stuff's  anything  like  radium,  it's  worth  thou 
sands  and  thousands  of  dollars.  Don't  you  know  it  is?  " 

He  made  no  reply.  She  had,  too,  a  word  for  Andrea,  a 
quick,  low  word  in  passing. 

"  When's  he  likely  to  be  out?  You  let  me  know  and 
I'll  bring  my  camera  and  take  a  picture  of  the  rooms." 

Before  Andrea  could  speak,  and  perhaps  reading  her 
shocked  face  and  unwilling  to  accept  an  answer  that  would 
have  been  adequate  expression  of  the  look,  Miss  Bixby 
passed  her  and  went  on  to  the  door  where  Mr.  Dove  still 
stood,  erect  and  vigilant.  He  looked  as  if  he  were  guard 
ing  something.  It  seemed  to  be  his  house,  but  really  it 
was  what  he  remembered  as  his  honor.  When  she 
reached  him,  Miss  Bixby  hesitated  and  looked  up  at  him 
with  a  word  on  her  lips ;  but  he  made  a  slight  imperative 
gesture  and  she  went  on.  He  closed  the  door  behind  her 
and  then  fell  to  trembling,  went  to  Andrea  and  said,  in  a 
childish  way : 

"They  mustn't  insult  us,  must  they?  To  think  —  a 
man  like  me  —  " 

Andrea  put  her  arms  about  him  and  held  him  to  her. 
What  was  he,  she  thought  passionately,  but  an  ill-used 
child?  Life  itself  had  broken  him.  It  had  made  him  do 
himself  wrong  with  the  Harveys  though  they  meant  him 
well;  but  now  he  had  vindicated  his  honor  before  this 
woman  who  would  have  corrupted  him. 

"  Daddy,"  she  said,  "  we  must  go  away.  We'll  find  a 
place  none  of  these  people  know  about."  Then  she  made 
her  desperate  appeal.  "  I've  been  wicked.  I've  lied  to 
them.  I  must  tell  them.  And  after  I've  told  them,  I  can't 
see  them  ever  any  more." 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  said,  in  a  perfunctory  acquiescence. 
"  We'll  go  away." 


148        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

For  an  instant  she  believed  she  could  tell  him  what  new 
actor  had  come  into  the  confusion  of  her  life:  Beatrice, 
unconsciously  disputing  with  her  the  allegiance  of  the 
dead.  She  had  the  page  of  her  own  mounting  remorses 
ready  for  his  reading:  how  she  had  believed  she  was 
wronging  only  her  poor  self,  and  then  it  was  Brooke  she 
had  wronged  and  now  it  was  Beatrice.  But  what  would 
it  mean  to  him?  What  would  any  mortal  drama  mean? 
nothing,  unless  it  touched  olympium. 


XV 

ANDREA  slept  soundly,  but  she  woke  in  terror.  She  was 
afraid  to  see  her  father.  He  had  met  Miss  Bixby  like  a 
man,  but  if  he  had  now  slipped  back  again  to  his  former 
state  she  felt  no  strength  in  her  to  bear  it.  Her  own  self- 
tormenting  mind  must  keep  its  poise,  at  least  until  she 
had  seen  what  his  mental  weather  was  likely  to  be.  It 
proved  very  dark  and  shifty,  the  sort  she  dreaded.  When 
he  came  out,  long  after  she  had  put  the  room  in  order,  he 
was  fractious,  impatient  of  delays  in  even  the  least  par 
ticulars,  and  his  face  told  her  he  had  slept  but  little.  He 
scarcely  glanced  at  her  and  spoke  curtly,  as  he  did  when 
he  was  deep  in  experiment,  as  if  she  were  some  unconsid- 
ered  instrument  of  his  will.  He  drank  his  coffee  hastily, 
standing,  and  made  no  pretence  at  breaking  bread. 

"  My  packing,"  said  he,  "  is  done.  You  should  have 
done  yours,  too,  last  night.  We  must  be  away  from  here 
to-day." 

"But  father,"  she  reminded  him,  "we  can't  go  until 
we've  found  a  place." 

"  I  am  going  up  to  some  of  those  South  End  streets," 
he  said,  "  where  we  looked  first.  You  can  go  round  here. 
Take  this  part  of  the  hill  and  see  if  there's  anything  pos 
sible.  Don't  engage  it.  I  can't  tell  what  I  shall  want 
to  do." 

She  made  no  answer,  and  he  took  down  his  hat  and 
eoat. 

149 


150        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

"Daddy,"  she  said,  hesitating,  "you  know  you've 
always  said  we  mustn't  both  be  away  at  the  same 
time." 

He  paused,  hat  and  coat  in  hand. 

"  I  know,"  he  said,  "  and  it's  truer  than  ever.  We're 
not  the  only  ones  to  know  what's  in  there.  We've  given 
away  our  secret,  Andrea,  given  it  away.  Did  you  hear 
what  that  woman  said  about  olympium?  She  said,  '  If 
it's  anything  like  radium  it's  worth  thousands  of  dollars.' 
She's  a  crook,  but  she's  no  fool." 

Andrea  was  bent  only  on  keeping  him  at  home. 

"  Don't  go,"  she  said.  "  Let  me  try  the  West  End  first. 
After  luncheon  you'll  feel  rested.  You  can  go  then  and 
leave  me  here." 

But  this  seemed  only  to  irritate  him  into  a  more  urgent 
haste. 

"  I've  got  to  go,"  he  said.  "  You  stay  here  and  look  out 
for  the  olympium.  The  sooner  we  get  away  the  better. 
Harvey's  a  crook.  They're  all  crooks.  They'll  do  us, 
Andrea,  yet.  They'll  steal  it  away  from  us.  Last  night 
it  came  to  me  Harvey  might  have  sent  that  woman  to  get 
round  me.  A  spy,  do  you  see?  Harvey's  a  rich  man. 
A  man  that's  played  the  money  game  as  he  has,  keeps  on 
playing  it.  My  olympium,  that's  his  game  now.  He 
wants  it,  and  he  means  to  have  it." 

"  You  didn't  think  so  when  you  sent  him  the  keys," 
she  reminded  him.  "  And  nothing's  happened  since." 

He  waved  that  away. 

"  Yes,  there  has,"  he  said.  "  They  sent  that  woman. 
But  they  won't  find  what  I  called  my  mechanical  toy. 
I've  taken  it  apart  so  the  devil  himself  couldn't  put  it  to 
gether.  I've  packed  it  in  a  box  and  I  shall  take  that  with 
me." 

He  went  into  the  laboratory  and  returned  at  once, 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        151 

carrying  a  small  wooden  box  she  remembered  to  have 
seen  in  their  last  moving. 

"  Where  is  the  olympium?  "  she  asked  him.  "  In  the 
usual  place?  " 

"  The  usual  place,"  he  answered,  as  if  he  were  propiti 
ating,  cajoling  her.  "Remember  the  rule,  Andrea:  if 
you  want  to  hide  a  thing,  put  it  in  plain  sight." 

And  now,  in  the  best  of  spirits,  he  was  hurrying  off, 
laughing  softly,  as  it  seemed,  at  his  own  cleverness  in  out 
witting  a  world  of  crooks.  But  at  the  door  he  stopped 
and  considered  for  a  moment,  nodding,  with  lips  com 
pressed. 

"  After  all,"  he  said,  "  you're  right.  You  shall  go,  and 
when  you  come  back  I'll  take  my  turn.  Not  to  go  out 
together,"  he  repeated  laughing,  in  the  sly  way  she  hated. 
"  That  was  it,  wasn't  it,  Andrea?  That's  what  we  always 
said." 

And  now  that  he  had  bidden  her  go,  she  stood  a  moment, 
trying  to  get  a  grip  on  her  scared  nerves,  recalling  her 
composure  and  asking  herself  what  it  was  her  part  to  do. 
To  go  out,  she  told  herself,  when  the  terror  he  had  raised 
in  her  died  with  ebbing  heart  beats,  to  do  the  immediate 
practical  thing  and  find  a  place  to  live.  She  put  on  her 
hat  and  coat,  left  the  table  in  disorder  and  went.  And 
there  before  her  door  was  the  Harveys'  car  and  Brooke 
himself  just  stepping  out.  Involuntarily  she  turned, 
fumbling  for  her  key,  but  he  was  at  her  side. 

"  Would  you  mind  —  "  he  began,  and  she  met  the  sad 
sincerity  of  his  eyes. 

What  was  that  new  look  there?  Was  it  all  grief  over 
his  brother's  death,  or  had  she  herself  darkened  those 
clear  wells  of  light? 

He  put  his  question. 

"  Would  you  mind  not  going  in?  " 


152        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

He  had  expected  her  to  open  the  door  for  him  to  enter, 
and  she  lacked  heart  to  own  she  meant  to  run  away  from 
him. 

"  Thank  you,"  he  said.  "  If  you  don't  mind  talking 
here  a  minute.  First,  I've  brought  you  what  Phil  sent." 

She  had  put  Beatrice  out  of  her  mind,  not  to  be  remem 
bered  again  until  the  moment  of  confession.  But  now 
here  was  Beatrice,  invisible  yet  no  less  implacable  instru 
ment  of  the  avenging  powers. 

He  continued: 

"  His  fob,  you  know.  I  told  you.  He  made  me  take 
it  that  day  before.  He  kept  insisting  he  would  come  out 
of  it;  but  that  was  to  keep  me  from  getting  rattled.  Be 
sides  he  did  love  to  play  the  game.  You  know  Phil."  He 
took  a  twist  of  white  paper  from  his  pocket  and  held  it 
out  to  her.  "  Just  as  he  gave  it  to  me.  I  haven't  opened 
it." 

She  looked  at  it  in  what  seemed  to  him  mysteriously 
like  horror.  She  made  no  move  to  take  it. 

"  Why,"  she  asked,  "  do  you  bring  it  to  me?  " 

He  was  amazed. 

"  Why?  "  he  said.  "  You've  told  me  why.  I  own  I 
didn't  know  who  it  was  he  meant,  though  I  thought  I  did, 
and  so  I  didn't  ask  him.  But  you  told  me  yourself  yester 
day.  You  told  all  of  us.  You  married  Phil  and  of  course 
he  sent  his  token  to  you.  Of  course!  " 

She  stood  looking  down  at  the  pavement.  He  seemed 
little  more  than  a  voice  pronouncing  judgment  on  her. 
She  thought  a  great  many  things  in  that  instant.  It 
seemed  to  her  that  forces  were  fighting  to  give  her  back 
her  old  simple  honesty;  but  she  was  too  tired  with  all 
that  had  passed,  too  torn  by  anxiety  for  her  father  and  in 
ability  to  judge  what  was  best  for  him,  to  know  what  force 
was  on  the  side  of  her  sick  soul  and  what  was  condoning 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS         153 

the  perjury  that  had  played  the  devil  with  her  life.  And 
she  remembered  Beatrice.  And  suddenly  one  of  the 
armies  fled,  in  great  rout  and  confusion,  and  she  believed 
the  conquering  force  was  commanding  her  to  confess  her 
lie  here,  now,  and  make  an  end  of  warfare.  She  looked 
up  at  him  with  the  words  ready  on  her  lips,  and  he  was 
gazing  at  her  in  such  simple  tenderness  and  compassion 
that  she  forbore. 

"  You  know,"  he  said,  stumbling  on  the  words,  for  he 
was  very  boyish  when  it  came  to  things  he  felt  deeply, 
"  I  ought  to  have  given  it  to  you  yesterday,  the  first  min 
ute,  but  it  was  all  so  strange  —  Phil  never  speaking  to  me 
about  you  —  and  you  —  why,  you  know  I  thought  I  was 
the  one  that  found  you,  and  it  seems  it  was  Phil,  after  all. 
So  far  as  I  can  see,  it's  all  an  awful  mix-up  because  we 
looked  alike, — though,"  he  added,  as  if  to  himself,  his 
brows  meeting  in  perplexity,  "we  don't  look  so  much 
alike  as  all  that  comes  to." 

This  told  her  something  else.  He  was,  in  his  simple 
honor,  snatching  at  the  same  justification  to  account  for 
her  coming  to  his  arms.  He  had  been  thinking  it  out,  and 
all  he  could  find  to  solve  the  puzzle  was  this  specious  sup 
position  that  Phil  and  he  were  alike  and,  lacking  Phil,  she 
had  caught  at  him.  But  he  was  the  most  normal,  though 
one  of  the  most  fanciful  of  men,  and  she  could  see  how 
he  would  hate  the  solution  even  while  he  caught  at  it. 
And  she  was  right.  He  had  been  hoodwinking  himself 
into  his  old  belief  in  her,  he  had  accepted  a  psychologic 
melee  of  the  affections,  odious  to  him  and  yet  to  be  ac 
cepted  like  delirium  or  some  temporary  disfiguration  ill 
ness  might  have  fastened  on  her.  But  there  was  one  thing 
more  she  had  to  know. 

"  If  you  didn't,"  she  said,  "  believe  in  me  yesterday, 
why  do  you  believe  in  me  to-day?  " 


154        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

"  Why/'  he  said  remindingly,  with  his  compassionate 
smile,  "  I've  had  time  to  think  it  over.  Yesterday,  don't 
you  see,  it  struck  me,  biff!  it  knocked  me  out.  But  when 
I'd  got  my  wind  back  I  knew  it's  so  because  you  say  it. 
We  can't  go  back  of  that." 

And  looking  up  at  him  again,  that  unusual  quality  of 
his  eyes,  the  soft  sincerity  of  them,  she  knew  if  she  de 
stroyed  his  belief  in  her  she  would  be  killing  something  as 
vital  as  life  itself.  It  would  be  a  murder  of  something  in 
his  soul  that  had  withstood  the  cankering  force  of  a  good 
deal  of  worldly  wisdom  and  first  hand  contact  with  the 
war. 

"  And,"  he  was  saying,  flushing  now  with  the  difficulty 
of  it,  the  flourish  of  emotions  he  would  have  chosen  to 
keep  hidden  to  make  themselves  apparent  only  in  the  acts 
of  every  day,  "  I  want  to  say  now  —  and  I  won't  say  it 
again  —  I'm  right  here.  I  know  pretty  well  what  old  Phil 
would  want  me  to  do,  and  so  does  father.  Mother'll  see 
it,  too,  when  she's  got  hold  of  herself.  Mum  isn't  herself, 
you  know,"  he  added  impulsively.  "  She's  gone  daffy 
over  her  spirit  writing.  But  she'll  wear  through  that. 
Dad'll  pull  her  through." 

As  she  heard  the  beloved  voice  promising  her  the  kindly 
intercourse  of  common  life,  her  resolution  weakened. 
Perhaps  these  Harveys  were  the  more  enchanting  to  her 
because  she  had  lived  at  such  high  tension  for  so  many 
years  that  life  itself  seemed  daily  tragedy  Ana  she  com 
pounded  with  that  conquering  battalion  of  her  mind,  be 
seeching  it  to  spare  her  action  for  one  hour  more.  If  she 
confessed  now  she  loosed  the  spring  that  held  an  impene 
trable  wall  above  her,  ready  to  fall  between  her  and  the 
light  of  day.  Could  not  Beatrice  wait?  When  at  last 
she  had  her  token,  she  could  triumph  for  the  rest  of  her 
life  over  the  woman  who  had  nothing.  They  had  walked 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        155 

away  a  little,  out  of  the  chauffeur's  hearing,  and  contin 
ued  pacing  back  and  forth,  and  now  Brooke  put  out  his 
hand  and  again  tendered  her  the  twist  of  paper. 

"So!  "  he  said.  It  meant  a  great  deal,  all  they  had 
been  formulating.  "  So,"  the  frank  voice  told  her,  "  since 
you  are  Phil's  wife  and  the  thing  is  yours,  take  it." 

And  that  recalled  her  to  the  inexorable  fact  that  you 
can't  live  upon  the  abstractions  of  a  chosen  course;  you 
have  to  accept  its  concrete  issues. 

"  No,"  she  said  violently,  "  no.  Don't  let  me  touch  it, 
don't  let  me  hear  it  mentioned.  Why!  "  and  here  her 
over-driven  mind  that  seemed  to  have  been  growing  more 
and  more  sluggish  these  last  minutes  awoke  and  again  re 
membered  Beatrice.  "  If  you  thought  you  knew  the  girl 
he  was  sending  it  to,  why  not  give  it  to  her?  If  there  is 
another  woman  who  thinks  —  " 

Here  she  stopped  bewildered  at  the  first  turning  of  the 
labyrinth.  She  was  about  to  repeat,  "  Give  it  to  her,  in 
God's  name,"  but  that  would  be  to  demolish  the  credu 
lities  he  had  pieced  together.  And  even  for  this  last  in 
consistency  he  had  a  theory.  The  mantle  of  his  inven 
tiveness  seemed  big  enough  to  cover  even  her  own  invol 
untary  testimony. 

"  Now,"  he  said,  "  you  mustn't  do  that,  mustn't  let 
yourself.  However  queer  this  is,  the  whole  business, 
there's  no  room  for  doubt  where  Phil's  concerned.  He 
wasn't  that  sort.  If  he  cared  enough  about  you  —  and 
he  did  —  "  he  added  emphatically,  as  if  to  assure  himself 
again  of  his  own  acquiescence  — "  why,  that's  all  there 
was  to  it.  He  simply  did.  And  if  he'd  ever  thought  he 
had  a  fancy  for  another  girl,  that  had  to  go,  same  as 
fancies  do  when  the  real  thing  comes  along.  You're  jeal 
ous,  just  a  little  bit.  But  don't  be.  Remember,  it's  old 
Phil!" 


156        THE   WIND:  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

But  he  thrust  the  twist  of  paper  into  his  pocket,  either 
to  punish  her,  she  thought,  as  you'd  pretend  to  punish  a 
dear  child,  or  because  he  judged  the  time  for  insisting  was 
not  yet.  He  was  saying,  in  the  commonplace  way  he  had 
of  putting  her  at  her  ease: 

"  Almost  forgot  my  errand.  My  father  wants  you  to 
come  home  with  me." 

She  was  at  once  on  the  defensive. 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  said.    "  I  can't  do  that." 

"  He's  got  a  good  deal  to  tell  you,"  Brooke  went  on,  in 
no  slightest  doubt  of  convincing  her.  "  He'd  have  come 
here,  only  he  had  an  idea  your  father's  in  a  bad  way, 
likely  to  be  excited  and  all  that.  And  I've  an  idea  he 
means  to  propose  something  very  much  to  your  father's 
advantage." 

Suddenly  her  heart  grew  light,  as  if  she  had  been  suffo 
cating  in  a  fetid  place  and  the  cool  sweet  air  had  blown  on 
her  and  her  lungs  expanded  and  she  was  saved.  It  was 
Peter  Harvey  who  was  saving  her,  the  merciful  kindness 
of  him,  as  she  had  felt  the  message  his  spirit  sent  forth 
unconsciously  in  the  first  moment  she  saw  him.  She  could 
ask  to  see  him  alone,  she  could  tell  him  that  she  was  a  liar 
and  beg  him,  as  she  knew  him  to  be  merciful,  to  do  her 
the  one  last  mercy  of  letting  her  disappear  from  them 
completely.  He  would  tell  Beatrice.  He  would  take  the 
task  of  wiping  the  need  of  her  out  of  Brooke's  mind.  It 
would  be  as  if  she  were  dead;  better,  for  there  would  be  no 
danger  of  disquieting  rumors  from  some  spirit  world  to 
thicken  the  atmosphere  of  this. 

"  Yes,"  she  heard  herself  saying,  "  I  should  like  to  see 
your  father.  Not  your  mother,  please." 

Brooke  answered  cheerfully  and  the  more  readily  be 
cause  he  thought  she  might  well  dread  his  mother's  jealous 
unbelief. 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        157 

"  Mother's  gone  to  a  lecture.  Wanted  me  to  go  with 
her.  Something  about  the  dead  surviving.  Can't  stand 
it.  Dad  can't  and  I  can't  either.  She  made  me  read 
some  of  the  things  Miss  Bixby's  written  down.  It  adds 
a  horror  to  death.  If  that's  Phil  —  well!  " 

He  had  put  her  into  the  car  and  taken  his  place,  ram 
bling  on  without  expecting  answers,  because  he  thought 
they  had  gone  deep  enough  into  the  half  light  between 
them  and  she  must  be  left  with  all  possible  composure  to 
meet  his  father. 

"  I  don't  know  why,"  he  said,  "  but  every  hair  on  my 
spine  rises  when  they  begin  to  tell  me  what  Phil  says. 
Like  a  dog's,  you  know.  Why,  I  know  him  as — "  he 
paused  and  quite  unconsciously  came  a  simile  that  made 
her  pulses  leap  to  him  —  "as  I  know  you.  And  if  it's 
Phil  —  if  it  could  be  —  why,  any  one  of  a  hundred  words 
he  could  think  of,  words  I  know,  too  —  they'd  mean  vol 
umes —  they'd  tell  me.  Not  this  popular  lecture  room 
slush."  But  immediately  he  caught  himself  up,  remem 
bering  her  father.  "  They  tell  me  your  father  says  science 
is  going  to  do  it.  I  could  believe  that  —  if  I  could  believe 
anything." 

Suddenly,  for  after  all  she  didn't  know  very  much  about 
this  young  sky  god  who  had  come  down  to  her,  she  wanted 
to  hear  what  he  did  believe,  not  about  the  dead  only,  but 
everything.  That  unappeased  spiritual  thirst  was  upon 
her  which  prompts  lovers  new  to  each  other  to  desire  with 
passion  each  other's  image  and  print  it  on  their  own. 

"  But  you  do,"  she  said,  "  believe.  You  believe  they 
are  alive." 

He  was  silent  a  moment.    Then  he  said  gravely: 

"  Yes,  I  believe  they're  alive  —  because  they  can't  be 
dead.  I've  seen  too  many  of  them.  And  Phil  —  do  you 
suppose  —  "  Suddenly  he  felt  the  incongruity  of  a  talk 


158        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

like  this,  whirling  along  in  the  brilliant  day.  "  Here  we 
are,"  he  said,  and  opened  the  door  for  her.  Then  he  told 
the  chauffeur  he  was  to  go  for  Mrs.  Harvey.  It  was  an 
hour  away,  and  Andrea  made  note  of  it,  so  that  she  might 
herself  be  gone.  Still,  she  thought  drearily,  what  she  had 
to  say  would  not  take  long. 


XVI 

BROOKE  let  her  in  and  took  her  to  the  library.  She  en 
tered  the  room  with  relief,  because  Peter  Harvey  was 
there.  That  meant  kindness,  an  even  unreasoning  sym 
pathy.  But  he  was  not  alone.  By  the  fire  sat  Madam 
Brooke,  charming  in  lilac  and  white,  greeting  her  by  a 
slight  movement  that  seemed  to  indicate  an  impulse  of 
rising  from  her  chair  and  the  immediate  conclusion  that 
youth  would  forgive  her  continued  sitting.  Peter  Harvey 
came  forward  and  took  Andrea's  hand.  The  hearty  grasp 
seemed  to  promise,  at  the  outset,  all  those  things  she  knew 
she  might  expect  of  him.  He  gave  her  a  chair  between 
the  library  table  and  the  fire  and  went  back  to  his  accus 
tomed  place.  There  Andrea  was,  she  realised,  not  alone 
with  him  but  with  three  of  them  ranged,  not  against  her, 
it  was  true,  but  in  an  unrecognised  coalition  to  interro 
gate  her.  They  were  bent  on  understanding  her  and  ab 
solutely  unaware  that  she  was  not  correspondingly  eager 
to  be  understood.  But  all  their  predisposition  toward  her 
could  not  rob  the  coming  inquisition  of  its  menace.  She 
might  have  asked  Brooke  to  leave  her  alone  with  his 
father ;  but  it  was  an  impossibility  to  beg  this  frail  yet  in 
exorably  powerful  old  woman  to  go  out  of  the  room  and 
out  of  the  case.  You  couldn't  do  that  to  old  women  of  her 
sort;  and  besides,  it  wouldn't  work.  She  wouldn't  go. 
She  was  kindness  itself,  but  she  was  also  unquestioning  as- 
sertiveness.  She  had  reached  the  point  where  mortality, 
under  the  heel  of  the  tyrant  Time,  with  a  smiling  arro- 

159 


160        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

gance  soon  to  be  smothered  in  dust;  wields  unbending  au 
thority  over  its  last  brief  hour. 

Peter  Harvey  began  at  once. 

"  My  dear,  we  were  upset  yesterday,  all  of  us.  Then 
this  boy  here  —  "  he  smiled  at  Brooke,  who  had  seated 
himself  on  a  couch  in  the  darker  background  —  "  he  came 
bursting  in  on  us  and  we  hadn't  eyes  or  ears  for  anything. 
But  I  don't  want  to  lose  any  time  in  telling  you  we're  with 
you  —  "  he  was  about  to  add  "  all  of  us  "  when  he  re 
membered  his  wife  —  and  ended,  temporising:  "Mother 
Brooke,  you're  with  us,  aren't  you,  Brooke  and  me?  We 
don't  mean  to  grill  you  or  question  you  or  make  you  prove 
things,"  he  went  on,  so  confident  of  Madam  Brooke's 
answer  that  he  left  her  no  time  to  make  it.  "  We  simply 
want  to  do  what  Phil  himself  would  expect  if  he'd  got 
round  to  telling  us." 

Andrea  sat  looking  at  him,  lost  for  a  moment  in  her 
recognition  of  his  simple  human  kindness.  It  was  too 
perfect  a  thing  to  be  destroyed.  She  loved  it  so  much  that 
she  was  drawn  on  to  test  it  further,  the  beautiful  thing 
born  of  his  own  goodness  of  heart,  fathered  by  her  lie, 
before  her  confession  beat  its  bright  head  down  into  the 
dust. 

"  Still,"  she  said,  "  you  don't  know  a  single  thing  about 
me  except  what  I've  told  you." 

Brooke  moved  suddenly  as  if  he  were  about  to  rise  and 
speak,  but  it  was  his  father  who  answered,  with  the  ex 
quisite  gentleness  that  comes  only  from  the  heart. 

"  My  dear,"  he  said,  "  you  carry  your  credentials  with 
you." 

"  A  trick  of  the  muscles  about  the  eyes,"  put  in  Madam 
Brooke  quietly. 

"  So,"  said  Peter  Harvey,  "  I  want  to  tell  you  I'm  going 
to  deposit  a  sum  of  money  where  you  can  draw  on  it.  I 


THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS         161 

sha'n't  pester  your  father  by  talking  about  syndicates  and 
demonstrations.  He's  in  no  condition  to  be  approached 
in  that  way.  So  far  as  his  work  is  concerned,  matters 
will  be  left  entirely  in  your  hands." 

Andrea  spoke  in  a  moved  voice  that  made  Madam 
Brooke  look  at  her  curiously.  It  was  a  voice  of  extreme 
emotion,  an  ecstasy  of  gratitude  perhaps,  yet  shot  through 
with  fear. 

"  But,"  she  said,  "  I  can't  take  money  from  you,  even 
for  father.  I've  come  to  see  that.  He  can't  —  "  she  hesi 
tated  and  then  went  on  —  "  he  can't  be  allowed  to  take 
it." 

"  It  isn't  from  me,"  said  Peter  Harvey.  He  always 
seemed,  at  these  moments  of  tranquillizing  the  perturbed 
human  soul,  to  have  unending  time  at  his  disposal,  an  in 
exhaustible  supply  of  patience.  "  It  is  from  my  son.  You 
would  have  taken  things  from  him  if  he  had  lived. 
That's  all  the  more  reason  why  I  should  see  you  have 
them  now." 

Andrea  sat  silent  looking  down  at  her  hands,  hard- 
worked  hands,  yet  still  delicate,  clasped  tightly  in  her  lap. 
She  was  smiling  a  little,  too,  thinking  how  capriciously 
unaccountable  life  is,  and,  after  all,  how  kind.  Here  was 
she  face  to  face  with  the  moment  that  should  have  brought 
her  punishment,  and  it  was  offering  her  instead  the  sweet 
est  proof  she  had  ever  had  of  the  goodness  in  human 
hearts.  It  was  a  tremendous  gift  they  brought  her,  these 
people,  the  mere  knowledge  of  themselves.  She  might 
have  lost  her  belief  in  herself,  but  she  was  gloriously  con 
firmed  in  her  belief  in  the  world.  And  upon  the  heels  of 
this,  it  came  to  her  that  the  least  she  could  do  for  them 
was  to  save  them  the  reality  of  their  own  illusion.  If  she 
could  leave  them  now  while  they  still  had  faith  in  her, 
leave  them  merely  to  wonder,  not  to  doubt,  she  would 


162        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

have  spared  them  the  last  injury  of  all:  the  knowledge  of 
evil  that  seemed  somehow  not  yet  to  have  corroded  their 
soft  hearts.  And  she  forgot  Beatrice.  In  the  moment  of 
her  thinking  these  things  she  seemed  to  be  removed  into 
that  vague  distance  where  the  visionary  is  the  only  true. 
Madam  Brook  recalled  her.  Here  were  facts  again,  the 
challenge,  the  demand,  and  Andrea  felt  herself  flung  again 
upon  the  spears  of  sharp  interrogation. 

"  You  said,"  the  old  lady  remarked  quietly,  though  her 
authoritative  voice  was  never  without  an  arresting  signifi 
cance,  "  you  were  married  on  the  tenth  of  August." 

Brooke  moved  slightly,  and  Peter  nodded  in  his  direc 
tion,  as  if  to  say,  "  I  agree  with  you.  Leave  it  to  me. 
I'll  quash  it." 

Before  Andrea  had  recovered  herself  to  the  point  of 
answering,  Peter  answered  for  her: 

"  Mother  Brooke,  I  propose  leaving  all  these  details  for 
the  present.  Naturally  we  want  to  know  how  everything 
came  about.  It's  a  part  of  Phil's  life.  But  we're  going 
to  see  a  lot  of  this  dear  girl,  and  she'll  understand  how  we 
feel  about  that  and  want  to  tell  us,  as  much  as  we  long  to 
hear.  But  just  now  the  important  thing  seems  to  be  to 
get  her  father  into  condition  for  going  on  with  his  work. 
It's  easy  to  see  how  much  that  means  to  him.  I  should 
doubt  if  he  could  live  without  it.  Everything  else'll  come 
in  good  time." 

Madam  Brooke  waited,  with  no  apparent  impatience, 
for  him  to  finish,  and  then  repeated,  in  a  tone  perhaps  a 
shade  warmer,  as  if  assuring  Andrea  she  might  trust  the 
impelling  force  behind  it: 

"  I'm  sure  she  won't  mind  telling  me  whether  it  was  the 
tenth  of  August." 

And  now  to  Andrea  the  world  and  the  laws  that  gov 
erned  it  did  not  look  so  irresponsibly  kind.  The  question, 


THE  [WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS         163 

like  a  huge  creature  with  gigantic  wings,  seemed  to  be 
winnowing  her  before  it  into  the  gulf  of  lost  hopes  and 
tarnished  destinies.  Yet  she  must  answer,  and  after  that, 
whatever  she  said,  the  wings  would  beat  on  her  the  faster. 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  her  stiff  lips  trembling,  "  the  tenth  of 
August." 

Here  Brooke  surprised  her. 

"  No,"  he  said  vehemently.  "  Think  what  you  mean  to 
say." 

Andrea  had  no  experience  of  legal  procedure,  but  she 
did  know  that  a  lawyer  often  has  to  remind  his  client  that 
unguarded  words  may  be  used  against  him.  It  seemed 
to  her  Brooke  was  reminding  her,  not  to  tell  the  truth 
without  fear,  but  to  reflect  whether  the  truth  would  serve 
her.  Madam  Brooke  looked  at  him  quietly  and  perhaps 
drew  some  conclusion  he  detected,  for  he  bit  his  lip. 

"  I  gather,"  said  the  old  lady,  "  Brooke's  memory  of 
the  tenth  of  August,  1917,  agrees  with  mine.  I  keep  a 
diary."  She  ignored  Andrea  now,  as  if  she  wanted  to 
spare  herself  the  appeal  of  the  girl's  drawn  face.  "  I  find 
that  on  the  tenth  of  August  Phil  got  a  day's  leave  to  take 
Beatrice  for  a  flight.  They  went  off  about  nine  in  the 
morning  and  got  back  at  five.  Brooke,  does  your  remem 
brance  of  the  tenth  of  August  agree  with  mine?  " 

Brooke  was  silent,  sitting  there  on  the  couch,  bent  for 
ward,  his  hands  hanging,  his  glance  on  the  floor.  Andrea 
knew  where  his  thoughts  were,  and  how  his  memory  went 
step  by  step  with  hers.  He  recovered  himself,  straight 
ened,  and  faced  his  grandmother  with  a  smile. 

"  A  date!  "  he  said,  as  if  he  really  must  beg  her  to  con 
sider  how  easy  it  is  to  mislay  such  trifling  accuracies.  "  A 
day  of  the  month!  what  difference  does  it  make  whether 
she  remembers  it  was  the  tenth  or  one  of  two  or  three  days 
the  other  side  of  it?  " 


164         THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

"  Her  wedding  day/'  said  Madam  Brooke.  "  A  girPs 
wedding  day !  " 

And  increasingly  it  seemed  to  Andrea,  turning  from 
Brooke's  harassed  face  to  his  father's,  that  she  must  save 
their  faith  in  her.  She  raised  her  head  and  looked  now 
at  Madam  Brooke,  and  was  sure  the  keen  eyes  did  not  yet 
condemn  her  and  that  she  could  keep  her  own  unflinch 
ingly  upon  them. 

"  I  should  like,"  she  began,  "  to  explain  —  " 

But  what  her  next  words  would  have  been,  she  never 
knew.  She  was  at  one  of  those  moments  of  magnificent 
audacity  when  the  fighting  soul  challenges  the  harassed 
brain  to  act.  The  words  were  not  required.  A  knock 
came  at  the  door,  sharp,  importunate.  Brooke  rose,  the 
door  opened  and  Beatrice  came  in.  She  seemed  to  see 
nobody  but  Brooke  whom,  her  first  words  made  it  appar 
ent,  she  had  come  to  find. 

"  He  sent  me  something,"  she  said.  "  I  told  you  I  could 
wait  for  it.  I  can't.  Where  is  it?  " 

They  had  risen,  all  but  Madam  Brooke,  and  she,  after 
her  first  glance  at  Beatrice,  sat  with  her  eyes  on  Andrea. 
It  was  not  hostile,  this  look,  but  it  did  warn  Andrea  she 
was  definitely  under  observation  and  might  be  called  on  at 
any  instant  to  answer  whatever  misgivings  the  shifting 
aspect  of  the  scene  suggested.  As  for  Beatrice,  she  was  all 
life  and  loveliness,  the  red  overrunning  her  cheeks  and 
confidence  smiling  in  her  eyes.  Brooke  came  forward  to 
receive  her,  sorry  for  her,  angry  in  a  way,  because  she  was 
rushing  things,  courting  the  knockout  blow  of  meeting 
Andrea  and  hearing  what  she  was  to  Phil.  But  Beatrice 
was  not  to  be  warned  by  any  gravity  of  look  or  voice. 
She  was  in  no  sort  of  doubt  or  boding.  She  had  thrown 
aside  her  grief. 

"  Where  is  it?  "  she  insisted.    "  Brooke,  give  it  to  me." 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE  WORLDS         165 

Brooke,  Andrea  saw,  put  his  hand  to  his  pocket  where 
he  had  thrust  the  twist  of  paper,  and  she  found  herself 
whispering,  this  to  herself  and  unnoted  by  anybody  except 
perhaps  Madam  Brooke:  "Give  it  to  her.  Hurry! 
hurry!" 

Beatrice  continued,  her  shining  eyes  on  Brooke's  face, 
laughter  —  the  agitated  laugh  of  those  who  are  unreason 
ably  happy  —  in  her  voice. 

"  I  have  just  had  a  letter  from  him.  A  letter?  one  line 
written,  I  should  say,  the  minute  before  he  went  out  on 
that  last  flight.  It  says  —  besides  a  word  or  two  "  —  and 
here  she  paused  an  instant,  flushing  gloriously,  because 
the  unspoken  word  touched  her  to  flame  • — "  It  says 
•'  Brooke  will  give  it  to  you.  Look  inside/  And  that  let 
ter,"  she  continued,  as  if  amazed  that  angelic  messengers 
themselves  hadn't  seen  to  the  delivery  of  such  a  letter  — 
"  that  letter's  been  delayed  all  these  weeks.  Brooke  —  " 
her  voice  dropped  to  a  whisper,  "  what  is  it  youVe  got  for 
me?" 

Brooke,  quite  pale  now,  stood  there  with  the  twist  of 
paper  in  his  hand.  He  turned  slowly  to  Andrea  and 
seemed  to  ask  her  counsel  in  a  look.  She  tried  to  reach 
him  through  the  veil  that  shuts  mortal  man  from  man, 
to  will  him  with  her  soul,  if  it  could  be  called  her  soul,  to 
give  the  little  twist  of  paper  to  Beatrice.  And  at  that  in 
stant  fate,  the  sad  old  kindly  mourner  over  the  sorrows 
of  youth  which  yet  insists  on  their  being  faced  because, 
after  all,  it  is  but  youth,  spoke  from  the  lips  of  Madam 
Brooke. 

"  Bee,  your  note  says, '  Look  inside.7  I  suggest  Brooke 
lets  you  take  whatever  he's  got  there  and  you  see  what 
the  note  means  by  '  Look  inside/  " 

Brooke  put  out  his  hand  with  the  twist  of  paper  and 
Beatrice  took  it  hungrily.  She  unrolled  the  paper  and  the 


166        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

fob  dangled  from  its  chain.  It  was  an  oblong  with  three 
sides  of  semi-precious  stones  and  the  fourth  side  of  gold 
with  florid  ornamentation. 

"  I  think,"  said  Madam  Brooke  quietly,  while  Beatrice 
stood  regarding  it  in  a  perplexity  become  suddenly  grave, 
"it  is  made  to  open.  That  gold  side  is  probably  on  a 
little  hinge.  My  husband  had  one  something  like  it.  Put 
your  nail  under,  my  dear,  and  open  it." 

Beatrice  did  it,  and  the  lid  came  up.  Something  white 
lay  within.  She  took  it  out  and  unfolded  it,  a  tiny  ob 
long  such  as  a  chemist  might  wrap  a  powder  in.  It  was 
covered  with  finest  handwriting.  She  stood  reading  it, 
her  face  irradiated,  forgetful  of  every  living  creature,  of 
every  fact  or  argument  this  might  mean  to  them.  She 
seemed  to  have  been  withdrawn  from  them,  and  only  their 
silence  at  last  recalled  her.  She  looked  from  one  to  the 
other  of  the  three  —  somehow  she  did  not  include  Andrea 
at  all  or  feel  it  necessary  to  apologize  for  the  personal 
character  of  the  interview  —  and  laughed  a  little. 

"  It's  all  right,"  she  assured  them,  "  quite  all  right.  I 
never  shall  doubt  any  more.  I  shan't  even  —  mourn. 
He  has  said  —  everything." 

Then,  as  Brooke's  drawn  face  and  Peter  Harvey's 
mysteriously  set  countenance  impressed  her,  she  believed 
she  ought  to  assure  them  also.  She  answered  that  remon 
strance  from  her  own  mind. 

"  I  can't,"  she  said.  "  No,  I  can't.  I'd  let  you  see  it  if 
I  could,  but  it's  his  and  mine.  Not  even  you  —  "  She 
stopped,  her  eyes  dwelling  on  Madam  Brooke.  There  was 
a  great  tenderness  in  her  gaze.  It  said  she  could  admit 
age,  its  heart  and  brain  scarred  by  the  characters  of  life, 
where  she  could  not  let  in  anybody  else.  The  old  would 
take  the  heavenly  secret  soon  to  heaven  itself,  and  with 
the  others  it  would  fade  out  under  a  thousand  other 
memories. 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        167 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  with  a  lovely  tenderness.  "  I'll  let 
you." 

Then  she  was  at  Madam  Brooke's  side,  holding  the  pa 
per  so  that  she  could  see,  and  Madam  Brooke,  who  had 
sat  with  her  eye-glass  dangling  from  her  finger,  read  in  a 
glance,  flushed  all  over  her  fine  old  face  and  rose  and 
kissed  her. 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  yes,  my  darling,  that's  all  you  need 
to  know  till  you  go  to  heaven  and  find  him." 

Beatrice  turned  her  enchanted  face  from  them  and  was 
out  of  the  door  as  quickly  as  she  had  come,  and  all  Andrea 
was  conscious  of  was  a  despairing  certainty  that  it  was 
sad  she  had  done  what  she  had  and  that  Madam  Brooke 
could  never  call  her  darling.  But  Peter  Harvey  was  on 
his  feet,  his  face  worried,  his  tone  sharp  with  anxiety, 
quite  unlike  the  Peter  Harvey  who  had  begun  the  morn 
ing  with  a  general  unworldliness  of  benevolence. 

"  I  can't  understand  it,"  he  said.  "  I've  got  to  be  told. 
If  Phil  —  "  he  paused  here,  evidently  realising  there  must 
be  a  big  omission  of  what  they  had  accepted  concerning 
Andrea  —  and  adding,  after  the  dubious  interval  was 
safely  behind  him,  "  Why  the  devil's  he  sending  notes  to 
Bee?  " 

"  We  don't  know,"  said  Brooke  savagely.  "  We  don't 
know  anything  except  that  Phil  —  father,  Phil  never  did 
a  thing  in  his  life  that  wasn't  square." 

"  And,"  continued  Peter,  feeling  his  way  along  the  lab 
yrinth,  "  if  he  did  want  to  say  something  to  Bee,  why  not 
write  it  and  send  it  through  the  mails,  like  any  man  with 
his  wits  about  him?  " 

11  Because,"  said  Brooke,  "  that  wasn't  Phil.  Phil  had 
the  most  disorderly  wits  I  ever  saw,  where  his  private 
affairs  were  concerned.  I  don't  believe  he'd  ever  settled 
it  in  his  own  mind  he  wanted  to  write  till  that  last  minute 


168        THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

when  he  got  the  hunch  he  wasn't  coming  back.  And  then 
he'd  given  me  the  fob  and  he  remembered  he  hadn't  ex 
plained  there  was  something  inside.  He  couldn't  get  at  me 
to  tell  me.  I'd  gone  out  earlier,  you  understand.  So  he 
wrote  that  last  line.  And  if  it  just  referred  to  the  other  that 
had  been  written  earlier  and  didn't  say  anything  particu 
lar  besides,  —  why,  that's  Phil." 

"  Yes,"  said  Madam  Brooke  quietly,  "  that's  Phil." 

"  But,"  said  Peter  Harvey,  still  from  his  maze,  "  why 
Bee?  Why  not"  —  There  he  paused,  for  he  could  not 
add,  "  Why  not  Andrea?  " 

Brooke  burst  into  a  laugh.  It  was  one  of  immense  re 
lief.  He  put  his  hand  to  his  forehead  wet  with  the  sweat 
of  this  last  ordeal. 

"  What  a  fool !  "  he  said,  "  what  a  fool  I  was  not  to 
think.  Why,  what  he  wrote  Bee  was  asking  her  to  under 
stand.  He'd  been  awfully  fond  of  Bee.  At  that  last  min 
ute  he  saw  things  clear.  Fellows  said  they  did,  other  fel 
lows  when  they  were  going  in,  and  he  wrote  her  he'd  meant 
to  be  honest  and  asked  her  —  well,  asked  her  to  under 
stand.  And  she's  so  relieved  to  know  he'd  only  been 
muddle-headed,  not  what  she  was  afraid  —  no  wonder  she 
was  half  daffy,  dear  old  Bee." 

"  Mother,"  said  Peter  Harvey,  "  was  that  so?  You 
might  tell  us  that  much  about  what  you  read.  Was  that 
so?" 

Madam  Brooke  paid  no  attention.  She  turned  to  An 
drea. 

"  My  dear,"  she  said,  "  you've  heard  what  Bee  said. 
She  had  a  letter  from  Phil,  delayed.  Phil's  father  and 
mother  had  a  letter  from  him  this  morning  —  delayed. 
WTherever  those  last  words  he  wrote  went  in  their  delay, 
they  went  together.  Now,  did  you  have  a  letter  from  Phil 
this  morning?  " 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS         169 

Andrea  looked  at  her  in  a  hopeless  silence.  And  she 
was  aware  that  Harvey  was  frowning  at  her,  not  yet  in 
displeasure  but  that  attempt  to  understand.  If  she  was 
ever  to  confess  her  sin  toward  them,  must  it  not  be  now? 
Madam  Brooke  was  speaking  quietly,  in  an  expository 
clearness,  not  reasoning,  not  drawing  conclusions,  but  as 
if  she  were  merely  holding  up  a  fabric  in  the  sun  and  bid 
ding  them  look  at  it. 

"  Our  dear  boy  at  the  last  minute  before  going  out  to 
what  he  thought  would  be  his  death,  writes  two  letters  — 
two  enclosures  of  a  few  lines  each.  He  sends  one  to  his 
father  and  mother  and  one  to  his  old  playmate.  Oughtn't 
there  to  have  been  a  third  letter?  Isn't  there  anything 
strange  in  his  not  having  a  word  to  say  to  his  —  wife?  " 

On  the  last  word  she  hesitated  and  offered  it,  not  scepti 
cally,  but  in  a  way  Andrea  could  not  endure.  To  her  in 
flamed  mind  a  whole  accusation  lay  in  it,  and  she  called 
on  her  coward  soul  to  meet  it.  She  rose  to  her  feet  to  be 
ready  to  go  the  instant  she  should  have  made  the  short 
confession  the  challenge  of  the  words  demanded.  But  sud 
denly,  through  her  maze  of  trouble  she  became  aware  that 
Brooke  was  at  her  side,  that  he  had  taken  up  her  muff  and 
was  offering  it  to  her. 

"  Not  to-day,"  he  was  saying,  in  a  voice  of  heavenly 
kindness.  "  Let  me  take  you  home  now.  Dad,  we  don't 
need  to  talk  any  more  to-day?  " 

It  was  a  question,  but  it  was  a  petition  also.  Peter 
Harvey  would  have  liked  to  talk  a  great  deal  more  to 
day  ;  he  was  feverishly  anxious  to  get  these  half  lights  and 
shadows  clarified  to  fit  the  field  of  common  vision.  But 
he  could  read  the  boy's  face  and  voice.  Andrea's  too.  For 
some  reason  they  had  had  enough,  these  young  things,  and 
they  mustn't  be  pressed  too  far.  Doubtless  they  knew 
what  they  could  stand.  And  if  the  limit  had  been 
reached,  he  wasn't  the  man  to  urge  them  further. 


170        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

"  Quite  right,"  he  agreed.  "  No  more  to-day.  Only 
you're  to  remember,  my  dear,  that  to-morrow  morning  at 
the  latest  there'll  be  some  money  in  the  bank.  Every 
thing  shall  be  written  out  clearly." 

He  offered  her  his  hand,  but  Andrea,  smiling  at  him 
her  pitiful  smile,  did  not  take  it.  She  would  have  been 
glad  to  kiss  the  merciful  hand,  but  that  was  foolish,  an 
indulgence  she  had  no  claim  to.  Brooke  seemed  like  a 
friendly  wind  blowing  her  out  of  the  room  and  out  of  the 
house,  and  when  the  outer  door  had  closed  on  them,  Peter 
Harvey  turned  to  Madam  Brooke  and  asked: 

"  Well?  "  Then,  as  she  did  not  answer:  "  What  do  you 
make  of  it?  " 


XVII 

MADAM  BROOKE  looked  at  him  thoughtfully. 

"  I  don't  know  what  I  make  of  it,"  she  said.  "  But 
there  are  one  or  two  things  I'm  absolutely  sure  of.  One 
is  that  Phil  never  married  her." 

Peter  Harvey's  eyes  started  until  she  laughed  out  and 
said: 

"If  you  stood  your  hair  on  end  you'd  look  like  the 
funny  pictures  of  a  man  seeing  a  ghost." 

"  Not  married  her? "  he  repeated.  "  Of  course  he 
married  her.  Hasn't  she  proved  it?  " 

"  How?  "  asked  the  old  lady  quietly. 

"  How?  Why,  you  heard  her.  You  were  there  when 
she  told  us." 

"  She  proved  it  because  she  said  so,"  continued  Madam 
Brooke  placidly.  "  And  yet,  Peter,  you're  not  a  born  fool, 
either." 

His  eyes  refused  to  resume  their  natural  size.  He  sat 
staring  at  her  in  undiminished  perplexity,  and  so  sunken 
into  himself,  in  the  confessed  inability  of  coping  with  the 
affair,  that  he  looked  ten  years  older.  Madam  Brooke, 
regarding  him  satirically  though  kindly,  thought  he  was 
really  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  century  older  than  she,  be 
cause  she  felt  herself  on  the  job,  as  Brooke  would  say, 
and  Peter  was,  emotionally  speaking,  ebbing  away  from 
it. 

"  I  don't  see,"  he  said,  in  an  argumentative  tone  inten 
sified  by  his  realisation  that  he  had  failed  so  far  to  see 

171 


172        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

anything,  "  that  the  fact  that  she  has  failed  to  receive  a 
delayed  letter  is  any  evidence  at  all." 

"  It  isn't,"  said  Madam  Brooke  tranquilly.  "  It's  only 
odd,  if  she's  what  she  says  she  is.  I  didn't  say  it  was  evi 
dence.  I  said  it  was  odd.  And  it  is." 

"  And  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  he  blustered,  "  that  a  girl 
who  looks  like  that  —  " 

Here  he  paused,  conscious  of  the  absence  of  argument, 
and  she  replied: 

"  Just  what  I  told  you  before :  the  superciliary  muscles." 

"  Superciliary  muscles !  "  he  repeated,  welcoming  a 
term  to  vent  his  spleen  on.  "  It's  no  sort  of  argument  to 
use  words  a  fellow  never  heard  of.  And  what  the  devil 
does  superciliary  mean,  anyway?  " 

"  It's  those  muscles  over  the  eyebrows,"  she  explained. 
"  The  minute  the  girl  had  gone,  that  first  day,  I  looked  it 
up.  That's  what  gives  her  that  look  of  perfect  sincerity 
—  limpidity,  the  Henry  Jamesians  would  call  it." 

"  So  you  don't  believe  in  it?  "  said  Peter.  "  You  don't 
believe  in  her." 

"  Not  believe  in  her?  "  cried  Madam  Brooke.  "  Why, 
I  believe  in  her  down  to  the  ground.  I  don't  care  whether 
it's  the  superciliary  muscles  or  what.  I  just  believe  in 
hef." 

"  You  say  she's  an  impostor." 

"  I  never  said  any  such  thing." 

"  You  implied  it.    At  least  you  think  she's  lied." 

"  Oh,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  from  an  amazing  amplitude 
of  tolerance,  "  if  she's  lied  —  I  don't  know  why  I  say  '  if.' 
Of  course  she's  lied.  But  I'll  bet  you  —  ten  shares  of  rail 
road  stock,  the  ones  that  don't  pay  —  I'll  bet  you  it's  a 
nice  clean  whopper,  consecrated  as  a  church." 

"Brooke  believes  in  her,"  said  Peter  reflectively. 
"  That's  evident." 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        173 

"  Brooke !  "  There  was  unmeasured  scorn  in  her  tone. 
"  Brooke's  in  love  with  her." 

"  In  love  with  her!  "  he  repeated,  so  ingenuously  horri 
fied  that  she  burst  into  a  crow  of  laughter.  "  His 
brother's  wife?  " 

"  How  often  must  I  tell  you,"  she  composed  herself  to 
say,  "  she's  not  his  wife.  Lord,  Peter!  it's  well  you're  not 
set  on  being  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  or  any  of  those 
things  that  require  an  unprejudiced  mind." 

"  Does  he  know  it?  "  Peter  hurled  at  her.  "  Brooke,  I 
mean." 

"  I  couldn't  say.  It  would  be  rather  queer  though  if  I 
could  see  it  and  he  not." 

Then  Peter  diverged  from  the  matter  in  hand  to  wipe 
his  forehead  and  remark,  in  an  impetuosity  between  a 
groan  and  an  imprecation: 

"  I'm  glad  you're  usually  on  my  side.  I  shouldn't 
want  to  see  you  trying  to  lay  me  by  the  heels." 

"  I  trace  it  back,"  she  told  him,  "  this  whole  business 
and  the  state  of  mind  we've  got  into,  to  this  psychical  in 
fection.  I  don't  know  what  else  to  call  it.  Isabel  used 
to  be  a  dove.  What  is  she  now?  I  don't  know  any  bird 
naughty  enough.  She  pecks  your  ringer.  She's  so  deter 
mined  to  prove  there's  a  continued  state  of  being  that 
she's  willing  to  let  this  old  earth  dry  up  and  bust  for  all 
the  attention  she  pays  to  it.  She's  trying  to  find  her  son 
that's  gone,  and  she's  going  to  give  the  son  that's  here  a 
good  deal  of  a  jolt,  if  she  doesn't  look  out,  by  forgetting 
all  about  him." 

"  Go  ahead,"  said  Peter.  "  I  thought  I'd  escaped  the 
infection,  but  I  s'pose  I  haven't.  What's  it  done  to  me?  " 

She  had  no  idea  of  sparing  him. 

"  You?  "  said  she.  "  You've  lost  your  grip.  If  there 
a  prize  for  absolute  mental  futility,  you'd  have  got  it, 


174        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

Peter,  the  way  you've  just  been  going  on.  That  girl's 
father,  now,  from  all  you've  told  me,  is  precisely  like  the 
old  parties  that  lost  their  heads  over  the  elixir  of  youth. 
And  this  girl  —  she's  been  tried  too  far.  She's  devoted 
herself  to  her  father  and  he's  fed  on  her  like  a  vampire  and 
now  her  brain's  so  wuzzy  she  doesn't  know  t'other  from 
which." 

"  You'd  say  she  told  the  lie  to  save  her  father?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  For  how  would  it  save  him,  when  you 
come  to  that?  " 

"  I  can't  see,"  he  owned  helplessly. 

"  I  can't  either.  I  do  see  she  wants  money,  but  she 
must  have  been  able  to  tell  by  the  look  of  you,  Peter,  she 
could  get  it  out  of  you  without  any  such  melodrama  as 
this." 

"  She  may  not  be  so  inventive  as  you.  Melodrama 
may  be  the  only  thing  that  occurred  to  her." 

"  Maybe.  But  she's  made  one  big  mistake,  and  I  don't 
see  how,  with  the  best  will  in  the  world,  we  can  save  her 
from  the  consequences." 

"A  mistake?" 

"Telling  her  yarn  before  Isabel.  You  and  I  are  all 
right.  If  she  stood  up  and  confessed  to  us  —  and  I  could 
swear  she  was  going  to  this  morning  if  Brooke  hadn't  lost 
his  head  and  dragged  her  away  —  if  she  confessed  to  us 
we'd  look  at  her  eyebrows  and  say:  'Don't  mention  it.' 
But  Isabel  never'll  forgive  her  because  she's  made  light 
of  her  son." 

Peter  Harvey  had  long  recognized  the  value  of  judi 
cious  silences.  They  were  the  rests  in  the  harmony  of 
life,  particularly  marital  harmony. 

"  I  don't  see,"  he  ventured,  watching  Madam  Brooke 
with  an  inquiring  eye,  since,  if  she  wasn't  with  him  here, 
he'd  better  have  preserved  one  of  his  silences  toward  her 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        175 

also,  "  I  don't  see  why  Isabel  should  ever  know.  The  girl 
will  go  away  —  " 

"  Oh,  will  she?  "  scoffed  the  old  lady.  "  Ask  Brooke 
what  he's  going  to  do  about  that." 

"  Well,  what  the  devil  —  "  he  began,  pausing  there  from 
sheer  inability  to  find  words  of  a  combined  adequacy  and 
mildness. 

She  echoed  him  placidly. 

"  Yes,  what  the  devil !  The  only  thing  we  can  do  is  to 
form  a  coalition,  you  and  I.  For  this  girl  isn't  going,  as 
they  say  in  the  books,  out  of  our  lives.  She'll  stay  right  in 
'em  if  only  by  breaking  Brooke's  heart  by  going  out  of  his. 
There's  the  car.  There's  Isabel.  Look  at  her,  dear  little 
Belle !  she's  had  some  kind  of  message  from  that  debating 
society  they  keep  in  session  in  spirit  life.  That's  what 
some  of  'em  call  it,  you  know,  'passed  over  into  spirit 
life.'  Don't  you  let  'em  say  it  about  me,  Peter.  Say  I'm 
dead." 

"  You  won't  be  dead,"  said  Peter,  joining  her  at  the 
window  where  she  stood  looking  down  on  Isabel  talking 
to  Miss  Bixby  who  had  just  come  up.  Miss  Bixby  had 
come  in  a  taxi,  at  high  speed,  and  Peter  wondered  sadly 
if  her  haste  had  something  to  do  with  emergencies  in  the 
spirit  world. 

"No,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "you  may  bet  all  your 
railroad  stock  on  that.  But  I'm  not  going  to  join  their 
debating  circles,  and  if  they  insist  on  it  I  sha'n't  stay, 
that's  all." 

"You  said  this  psychic  business  had  driven  us  all 
daffy,"  said  Peter.  "  What's  it  done  to  her,  to  Bixby? 
Is  she  a  fraud  now?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  old  lady.  "  I'm  not  prepared  to  go  so 
far  as  that.  Not  entirely.  She's  in  it  for  what  she  can 
get;  at  least  that's  what  she  went  into  it  for.  But  look  at 


176        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

the  spark  in  her  eyes,  that  fanatical  spark.  It's  come 
there  within  a  month.  Even  Bixby's  not  living  entirely 
in  this  world.  Still,  we  know  she's  part  fraud  or  she 
wouldn't  have  walked  into  our  trap.  Pretty  clumsy  trap ! 
but  it  worked.  When  you  going  to  tell  Isabel?  " 

"  Not  yet,  not  till  some  of  this  has  quieted  down." 

"  Then  Bixby'll  get  her  discharge." 

"  Yes,  she's  got  to.  Only  I  wish  to  God  I  could  man 
age  it  some  way  without  hurting  Belle." 

"  I  don't  know,"  mused  the  old  lady,  "  of  any  possible 
way  of  influencing  Isabel  now  unless  we  could  get  that 
infernal  spiritual  convention  on  our  side.  If  they'd  send 
her  a  message  written  by  Bixby  on  a  roll  of  wall  paper! 
But  just  when  they  could  do  you  some  good  they  shut  up 
and  leave  you  floundering.  I'll  go  upstairs.  I  never 
want  to  see  Isabel  when  she's  been  communing  with  — 
whatever  it  is.  I  fly  out  and  she  winces." 

She  ran  up  the  stairs  at  her  lightest  —  and  she  was,  on 
occasion,  an  agile  old  lady  —  and  went  on  into  Isabel's 
sitting-room.  There  she  stood  a  moment,  and  smiled, 
noting  the  disorder  of  the  writing  table.  Miss  Bixby,  the 
pattern  of  exactitude,  must,  she  judged,  have  been  called 
off  in  haste  after  that  morning's  writing,  for  the  paper  lay 
outspread,  the  pencil  lying  on  it  as  if  it  had  fallen  after 
the  last  words.  She  went  over  to  the  table  and  this  was 
what  she  read: 

"  Not  in  your  sense  of  the  word.  You  wouldn't  under 
stand." 

For  a  long  minute  she  stood  thinking.  Then  she  took 
the  pencil  and  wrote,  in  the  free  hand  before  her: 

"  You  can  understand  this.  You  will  be  asked  to  for 
give.  Do  it  fully,  freely.  Accept  her.  Forgive." 

She  laid  the  pencil  down,  looked  round  at  the  door  and, 
struck  by  the  quiet  of  the  room,  laughed  a  little  to  think 
how  safe  it  seemed  to  meddle  with  mortal  minds. 


XVIII 

BROOKE  walked  beside  Andrea,  for  a  couple  of  blocks, 
not  speaking,  merely  deepening  in  her  the  impression  that 
there  was  no  getting  rid  of  him.  But  that  was  not,  at  the 
moment,  of  any  great  concern  to  her.  He  was  only  one 
wearing  force  the  more,  and  what  did  that  matter  now 
she  had  begun  to  see  how  all  the  armies  of  circumstance 
are  hostile  to  the  evil  doer?  These  powers  were  not  only 
so  malicious  but  so  infernal  in  their  cleverness  that  they 
had  now  conceived  the  cruelty  of  taking  away  her  free 
will.  There  had  been  the  moment  when  she  thought  she 
could  confess  to  Peter  Harvey,  and  another  when  she 
knew,  if  she  could  escape  the  interrogation  of  mercilessly 
clear  eyes,  she  could  write  out  her  damnation.  But  she 
had  delayed  too  long.  Even  this  last  coward's  makeshift 
had  been  taken  away  from  her  by  the  purely  accidental 
circumstance  of  the  delayed  letter.  Yet  was  anything 
ever  accidental?  Was  not  this  her  actual  punishment? 
She  had  paltered  and  hidden  herself  behind  her  own  vain 
desires  of  what  she  would  or  would  not  let  them  think  of 
her.  Nemesis,  as  impersonal  as  a  hound  on  the  scent, 
did  not  care  what  the  Harveys  thought  of  her.  Nemesis 
had  gone  unerringly  on,  nose  to  the  ground,  and  now  the 
padding  steps  were  close  behind  her.  Whatever  she  said 
now,  Brooke  and  his  father  could  never  be  sure  she  had 
meant  to  say  anything.  Her  confession  had  been  made 
for  her.  What  virtue,  what  decency  even  would  there  be 
N  177 


178        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

in  her  confirming  it?  Again  she  saw  how  terribly  she  had 
wanted  to  convince  them  that,  liar  as  she  was,  she  had, 
at  the  last,  turned  away  from  her  lie. 

"  Too  bad!  "  she  said,  under  her  breath.    "  Too  bad!  " 

But  he  heard  it. 

"  YouVe  got  to  talk  this  out  with  me,  you  know,"  he 
told  her.  "  I  sha'n't  let  you  out  of  my  sight  till  you  do." 

"  What  would  be  the  use? "  she  answered  drearily. 
"  When  a  thing  is  spoiled  it's  spoiled." 

"  Just  what  are  you  doing?  "  he  asked  her.  "  What  is 
it,  anyhow?  Are  you  giving  Phil  up  to  Bee  like  that 
sentimental  rot  we  put  into  books?  You're  not  that  kind. 
I'd  bet  my  life  you're  not  that  kind." 

"  No,"  she  said,  and  hurried  on  the  faster  because  it  was 
suddenly  unbearable  to  have  him  there  beside  her,  ques 
tioning,  pursuing  her  into  the  fastnesses  of  her  hidden 
life,  to  be  gentle  with  her  there,  but  always  with  that 
loving  cruelty  of  trying  to  see  her  as  she  was.  She  fell 
into  a  frenzy  of  haste.  At  all  costs  she  must  be  rid  of 
him.  But  he  had  only  to  quicken  his  stride,  and  he  had 
breath  in  plenty  after  hers  had  failed. 

"  Or  do  you  think,"  he  pursued,  "  Phil  somehow  played 
it  on  you?  You  couldn't  think  that.  Nobody  could  that 
knew  him  ten  minutes,  let  alone  —  " 

"  No,"  she  said. 

"  You  can't  have  got  up  some  nightmare  of  his  being 
really  fond  of  Bee  and  this  foolish  business  of  the  message 
proving  it  and  cutting  you  out  altogether." 

"  No,"  she  said  again,  "  I  don't  think  that  —  or  any 
thing.  Except  that  I  must  get  home.  I've  got  to  see  my 
father  and  make  our  plans.  You  must  let  me  alone. 
Please,  please  let  me  alone  —  all  of  you.  I'll  write  you 
the  whole  story,  every  word.  But  that  won't  do  any  good 
now,"  she  added,  to  herself. 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        179 

"No,"  said  Brooke  quietly,  "you  won't  write  me. 
You'll  talk  to  me  and  you'll  do  it  this  very  day,  and 
within  half  an  hour.  You  might  as  well,  for  I  sha'n't 
leave  you  if  I  have  to  force  myself  into  your  house  and 
question  you  before  your  father.  He'll  know,  perhaps. 
He'll  tell  me  if  you  won't.  A  man  would  understand  —  " 

They  had  turned  the  corner  into  the  dreary  street  of 
stables  and  she  stopped. 

"  Do  you  see  that?  "  she  asked. 

"  What?  " 

"  That's  your  Miss  Bixby.    She  came  out  of  our  door." 

This,  Brooke  saw,  annoyed  or  worried  her,  and  she 
started  on  walking  slowly,  her  eyes  on  Miss  Bixby  who, 
in  a  great  hurry,  was  approaching.  She  saw  them, 
stopped  short  as  Andrea  had,  evidently  in  her  turn  sur 
prised,  bethought  herself  and  came  on  rapidly.  She  was 
trigly  furled  as  ever,  with  tight  veil  and  tailored  surfaces, 
and  to  Brooke,  who  had  not,  in  these  few  days,  given  her 
a  more  than  casual  glance,  she  looked  as  usual.  He  took 
off  his  hat  and  was  about  to  pass  when  Andrea  stopped. 
Miss  Bixby  went  on  a  step,  thought  better  of  it  and  also 
stopped. 

"  Did  you  want  to  see  me?  "  Andrea  asked  her. 

Miss  Bixby  smiled  and  answered  with  an  airy  uncon 
cern  that  sat  upon  her  oddly. 

"  No,  not  for  anything  new.  I  thought  I  might  talk 
things  over  again,  on  the  same  lines,  you  know.  I'll  try 
again  when  I'm  sure  of  finding  you.  Excuse  me.  I 
have  to  run  along.  Mrs.  Harvey  will  be  home." 

She  hurried  away  with  the  same  air  of  unconcern,  and 
Andrea  went  on  thoughtfully: 

"  I'm  sorry,"  she  said,  "  to  have  her  go  there  when  my 
father  is  alone.  I  hate  to  have  him  bothered." 

At  the  door  she  stopped  and  turned  to  Brooke,  begging 


180        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

him,  by  her  glance,  most  eloquently,  to  leave  her.  But 
he  met  her  eyes  unmoved.  His  mouth  was  firmly  set,  his 
eyes  narrowed.  He  was  no  longer  the  sun-god  who  had 
come  down  from  the  skies.  He  had  even  lost  that  ex 
traordinary  resemblance  to  Philip  who,  in  the  picture,  was 
youth  itself  at  its  gayest,  running  over  with  the  love  of 
life.  This  was  a  man  of  stern  decision  who  knew  what 
he  wanted  and  had  sworn  to  himself  either  to  get  it  or 
to  detain  it,  at  least,  until  he  had  learned  every  aspect  of 
his  title  to  it.  The  war  had  changed  him  from  the  sun- 
god  to  the  fighting  man,  and  if  it  had  left  him  any  vestige 
of  his  young  joyance,  she  herself,  in  these  last  two  days, 
had  taken  it  from  him.  Life  had  hacked  at  him  with  her 
broadsword  and  the  woman  had  done  the  rest. 

"  Go  in,"  he  said. 

"  Good-by,"  she  answered,  knowing  it  was  futile,  and 
he  took  the  key  from  her  hand,  opened  the  door  and 
signed  to  her  to  enter. 

"  Go  in,"  he  said  again,  and,  in  a  way  mysterious  to  her, 
she  lost  the  will  to  withstand  him.  She  entered.  He  fol 
lowed,  closed  the  door  behind  them  and  gave  her  the  key. 
They  stood  there  in  the  desolate  room  and  she  thought 
how  amazing  it  was  to  see  him  there.  But  he  had  no  eyes 
for  the  strangeness  of  the  place.  He  seemed  to  have  in 
herited  it  from  her,  the  rites  of  hospitality  with  it  and  the 
authority  to  govern  the  interview. 
i  "  Will  you  sit  down?  "  he  said.  "  Give  me  your  coat." 

She  shook  her  head,  but  did  take  one  of  the  two  chairs 
near  the  table,  signing  him  to  take  the  other.  It  seemed 
as  if  he  would  be  less  terrifying,  sitting  there  where  her 
father  so  often  sat,  than  he  was  now  standing  over  her, 
unmoved  in  his  intention  to  get  at  that  self  she  had  not 
yet  the  strength  to  show  him.  But  suddenly  something 
signalled  her.  The  room  itself  seemed  to  speak,  as  rooms 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS         181 

will  when  they  have  known  even  a  desolate  companion 
ship  and  been  left  to  a  deeper  desolation.  This  room 
spoke.  While  she  thought  she  was  occupied  wholly  with 
the  tangible  terror  of  coming  inquisition,  the  room 
knocked  on  her  inner  mind. 

"  Wait,"  she  said,  though  Brooke  had  not  yet  spoken. 
She  listened.  "  I  don't  believe  my  father  is  here.  Let  me 
see." 

She  got  up  and  went  into  the  other  room,  leaving  the 
door  open  behind  her,  and  stood  there,  Brooke  watching 
her  and  realising,  with  this  snapping  of  the  thread  of  his 
assertiveness,  how  tense  he  was  and  how  uncertain  of  his 
next  step.  Andrea  stood  there  and  gazed  about  the  room, 
never  so  bare  as  now,  never,  since  they  had  moved  into 
the  place,  in  such  order,  for  her  father  had  evidently  not 
occupied  his  bed  at  all  the  previous  night  and  a  litter  of 
rubbish  that  might  have  been  the  by-product  of  his  work 
had  been  swept  to  one  side.  On  the  table,  ostentatiously 
alone,  stood  the  case  of  an  ordinary  camera,  and  that  she 
first  glanced  at,  bent  to  look  more  closely,  went  to  it, 
seized  and  lifted  it.  And  then  she  gave  a  low  cry  that 
brought  Brooke  to  her  side. 

"  Look,"  she  panted.  "  Look!  she  has  taken  it  and  left 
this  in  its  place." 

He  took  the  case  away  from  her,  glanced  at  it  casually 
and  set  it  down. 

"  Didn't  you  see  what  she  had  in  her  hand  when  we 
met  her?  "  Andrea  asked  him,  in  such  intensity  of  breath 
less  haste  that  he  put  his  hand  on  her  shoulder  to  steady 
her.  She  was  trembling  from  head  to  foot  and  he  drew 
forward  the  only  chair  in  the  room  and  signed  her  to  sit 
down.  But  she  shook  her  head  impatiently. 

"  Pay  attention,"  she  said  imperatively.  "  Put  your 
mind  on  this.  Didn't  you  see  what  she  had?  " 


182       THE   WIND   BETWEEN    THE  WORLDS 

"Who?" 

"  Miss  Bixby,  when  we  met  her." 

"  No,"  he  said.    "  I  didn't  really  look  at  her." 

"  She  had  a  camera,"  said  Andrea.  "  I  saw  it.  I 
thought  she'd  been  here  to  take  pictures.  She  wanted  to. 
She  asked  father.  To  advertise  olympium.  Publicity, 
that's  what  she  said.  It  did  look  familiar  —  I  knew  it  did 
then  —  only  I  didn't  see  why.  You  see,  she  took  my 
father's  away  and  left  hers  in  its  place." 

"  But,"  said  Brooke,  "  she  couldn't  have  been  in  here,  if 
your  father  wasn't  here  to  let  her  in.  Unless  he  left  her 
here  and  went  out  himself.  Or  unless  she  had  a  key." 

Andrea  struck  her  hands  together. 

"That's  it,"  she  said.  "She  had  a  key  — your 
father's." 

"  My  father's?    What  do  you  mean?  " 

"  I  can't  tell  you.  Not  now.  You  must  go  home. 
Ask  your  father  if  he  has  the  latch  key  I  gave  him  with 
the  other  one.  And  get  my  father's  case  away  from  her." 

He  might  have  thought  she  was  making  this  turmoil  to 
divert  him  from  those  unclarified  issues  she  was  so  averse 
to  meeting;  but  there  was  the  testimony  of  her  face.  It 
was  wild  with  alarm. 

"  After  all,"  he  ventured,  "  what's  the  odds  really  if  she 
did  carry  away  your  father's  camera?  It's  an  accident. 
It  can  be  set  right." 

"  Open  it,"  said  Andrea,  pushing  the  case  toward  him. 
"  It  isn't  locked.  Then  you'll  see." 

He  did  open  it,  looked  inside  and  said : 

"  What's  the  matter  with  it?  It  seems  to  be  the  usual 
thing." 

"  That's  it,"  she  returned  sharply.  "  It's  a  camera  and 
my  father's  was  only  a  case,  and  we  used  it  to  hide  his 
olympium  in.  When  we  travelled,  he  carried  it  in  his 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        183 

hand.  He  said  there  was  no  such  hiding-place  as  in  plain 
sight.  If  we  were  both  going  out,  to  leave  the  house  alone, 
one  of  us  took  it  along.  To-day  is  the  first  time  we  failed 
to  do  it.  I  left  my  father  here,  and  he  went  out.  I  sup 
pose  he  forgot.  He  was  tired.  That's  the  way  accidents 
happen.  You  get  tired  and  you  lose  your  grip." 

Brooke  looked  at  her  sympathetically.  She  also  was 
tired,  he  thought.  Let  her  talk  it  out  and  presently  her 
mind  would  swing  back  again  to  actualities.  But  sud 
denly  and  without  warning  his  own  mind  reversed  its  at 
titude.  All  this,  he  saw,  meant  something  real. 

"  Then/'  he  said,  though  bewildered,  "  the  thing  for  me 
to  do  is  to  get  after  Miss  Bixby." 

"  Find  her.  Take  it  away  from  her,"  said  Andrea,  in 
the  low  tone  of  a  most  passionate  appeal.  "  I  must  be 
here  when  my  father  comes.  I  can't  let  him  bear  it  alone. 
I  don't  know  what  would  happen  to  him.  Oh,  but  you'll 
bring  it  back! " 

Brooke  nodded,  snatched  his  cap  and  strode  out  and, 
when  he  reached  the  pavement,  found  himself  tempted, 
so  urgent  was  the  compulsion  of  her  anxiety,  to  break  into 
a  run.  He,  too,  he  thought,  might  reasonably  be  called 
hysterical.  The  fly  had  bitten  him,  and  when  one  of  his 
grandmother's  friends,  of  the  type  known  as  dear  old 
ladies,  stopped  him  to  pronounce  a  solemnly  precise  wel 
come  home  and  feel  his  mental  pulse  on  the  topic  of  war, 
he  was  in  a  fever  to  get  away  from  her.  And  when  he 
managed  it,  with  a  short  shrift  that  left  her  staring,  he 
laughed  a  little,  wondering  if  he  were  a  fool  to  let  Andrea 
infect  him.  For  his  mother  had  spoken  of  Miss  Bixby  in 
a  hush  of  gratitude.  When  he  entered  the  house  his  father 
and  mother  stood  just  within  the  doorway  of  the  reception 
room,  and  it  was  evident  that  his  mother  had  been  crying. 
Her  pink  face  looked  blurred  and  her  lip  trembled. 


184        THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

Peter  had  his  hand  on  her  shoulder.  Something  had 
happened  and  she  was  being  comforted.  As  Brooke  ap 
proached  them  he  saw  his  grandmother  nearer  the  middle 
of  the  room.  She  stood  there,  her  hand  on  the  table, 
lightly  supporting  herself,  and  she  looked  both  triumphant 
and  satirically  amused.  Brooke  halted,  decidedly  not 
wanting  to  involve  his  mother  in  a  commotion  over  Miss 
Bixby.  But  the  secretary's  name  was  on  her  lips. 

"  We're  a  good  deal  upset."  She  turned  slightly  to  in 
clude  him  in  the  circle  of  her  confidence.  "  At  least  I  am. 
Miss  Bixby  is  leaving  me." 

"  Then,"  said  Brooke,  the  words  leaping  out  before 
wiser  second  thought  could  interpose,  "  she  was  right." 

"  Who  was  right?  "  his  mother  asked. 

But  now  he  had  himself  in  hand. 

"  Never  mind,  mum.  Nothing  much.  Miss  Bixby's 
leaving?  " 

"  You  can't  imagine,"  Isabel  said,  pressing  her  handker 
chief  to  her  welling  eyes,  "  what  it  means  to  me.  It's 
simply  cutting  off  —  communication." 

When  Isabel  cried,  she  was  pathetic,  not  exasperating. 
She  had  none  of  those  tricks  of  a  distorted  countenance 
whereby  nature  seems  maliciously  determined  on  irritat 
ing  the  onlooker  into  becoming  the  outspoken  agent  of  a 
speedy  drying  up.  The  tears  came  welling  quietly  over 
her  quivering  face. 

"  Isabel,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  indubitably  triumphant 
in  the  background,  "  the  woman  never  did  you  a  better 
turn  than  taking  it  into  her  own  hands  and  leaving  you. 
You'd  have  had  to  dismiss  her.  It  was  only  a  question  of 
time." 

"There,  there!"  said  Peter,  in  a  warning  undertone 
meant  for  the  old  lady's  gentling,  "  never  mind  now." 

"  I  should  never  have  dismissed  her,"  said  Isabel,  in  a 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS         185 

passion  so  foreign  to  her  that  Peter  and  Brooke  started  in 
what  seemed  to  the  old  lady  a  comical  terror.  "  How 
strange  it  is  none  of  you  can  understand!  When  I  lose 
her,  I  lose  my  one  reliable  means  of  reaching  Phil.  It's 
as  terrible  on  his  side  as  on  mine." 

"  Well,  dear,"  said  Peter,  in  a  temporising  compassion 
he  took  at  its  own  value  and  helplessly  despised,  "  it  isn't 
as  if  she  were  the  only  one  doing  this  kind  of  thing." 

"  She's  the  only  one,"  said  Isabel,  "  who  does  it  satis 
factorily.  She's  so  clear,  she's  so  strong  on  facts.  There 
never  was  anything  like  her." 

"  That,"  said  Madam  Brooke  relentlessly,  "  is  because 
she  knew  how  to  piece  out  her  witchcraft  with  listening 
and  jumping  at  conclusions.  You  might  as  well  be  told 
—  no,  Peter,  you  needn't  make  faces  at  me  —  you  might 
as  well  be  told  I  set  a  trap  for  her  and  she  fell  into  it." 

"  Then,"  said  Isabel,  her  anger  so  funnily  inflating  her 
that  she  looked  like  an  enraged  bird,  every  feather  at 
unhappy  odds  with  all  the  rest,  "  that's  why  she's  leav 
ing." 

"  No,  it  isn't  either,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  with  an  air 
of  expertly  pricking  a  bubble  and  knowing  nobody  could 
puncture  it  with  such  well-timed  neatness.  "  She  didn't 
know  anything  about  it.  That  was  all  her  pull  on  the 
other  world  amounted  to.  It  was  about  the  clumsiest 
trap  ever  set  for  an  artful  dodger,  but  my  lady  walked 
straight  into  it.  And  she  never  knew  she  was  in.  You 
needn't  grin  at  me,  Brooke.  I'm  not  long  on  metaphor, 
as  you'd  say,  but  never  mind.  That's  how  it  was." 

Isabel,  looking  portentously  dignified,  drew  herself  up. 

"  Then,  mother,"  she  remarked,  with  an  icy  remoteness 
Peter  felt  down  his  backbone,  "  if  you  laid  plans  to  dis 
grace  a  secretary  as  valuable  as  Miss  Bixby  is  to  me,  it 
was  an  exceedingly  unladylike  thing  to  do." 


186        THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

"  Good  for  you,  Isabel,  good  for  you,"  said  Madam 
Brooke.  "  You're  a  regular  little  fighting  cock." 

She  laughed  in  untinged  amusement  at  the  richness  of 
it,  but  Peter  was  profoundly  discomfited. 

"  My  dear,"  he  said.  "  Isabel !  Mother,  really  now  1 
don't  you  see  what  we're  doing?  we're  having  a  row.  I 
don't  believe  such  a  thing  ever  —  " 

"  No,  it  never  did,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  leaving  her 
place  by  the  table  and  making  her  softly  rustling  way 
to  the  door.  "  It  never  did  happen  in  this  house,  and  it 
never  would  in  any  house  that  had  you  for  the  head  of  it, 
Peter.  Isabel,  I'm  terribly  sorry,  but  I  can't  take  it 
back.  The  girl's  a  fraud  —  more  than  half  fraud  any 
way  —  and  I  did  tole  her  into  a  trap.  You  sit  down  with 
Peter  and  Brooke  and  have  a  nice  long  talk  about  Phil. 
That's  better  than  your  messages." 

She  passed  Brooke  with  a  touch  on  the  hand  possibly 
reminding  him  that  now  was  his  time  to  press  into  the 
darkened  void  in  his  mother's  heart  and  recall  himself  to 
her  by  establishing  their  oneness  of  grief  over  Phil.  But 
either  he  did  not  understand  or  the  urgency  of  the  mo 
ment  was  more  immediate  to  him,  for,  as  his  father  and 
mother  turned  back  into  the  reception  room  and  sat  down 
together,  he  ran  up  the  stairs  after  grandmother  and  fol 
lowed  her  into  her  own  room.  She  knew  he  was  coming, 
but  she  did  not  halt  until  they  were  inside  the  doorway 
and  then  he  saw  how  white  and  worn  she  was,  how  for 
lornly  discouraged,  as  if  old  age  had  stolen  upon  her  in 
the  last  few  minutes,  after  her  gallant  stand,  and  forbid 
den  her  such  brave  fighting. 

"  Sit  down,  dear,"  he  said.  "  Let  me  get  you  some 
grog." 

She  did  sit  down  in  an  arm-chair  that  somehow  seemed 
to  enthrone  her  fragile  dignity  and  put  out  a  trembling 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        187 

hand.  He  took  the  thin  old  hand  and  held  it  close, 
with  an  unformulated  desire  to  give  her  somehow  a  por 
tion  of  his  own  vital  life  and  the  warmth  of  his  blood. 
Presently  she  smiled  at  him  wanly. 

"  Your  mother,"  she  said,  "  is  very  naughty.  You'll 
have  patience  with  her,  won't  you?  " 

" Patience!"  he  repeated.  "With  mum?  Well,  I 
should  say!  And  after  all,"  he  betrayed,  "Phil  was  a 
hundred  per  cent  more  of  a  fellow  than  I  ever  was.  No 
wonder  —  " 

There  he  paused,  seeing  suddenly  where  his  hurt  affec 
tion  was  leading  him ;  but  he  had  given  her  her  chance. 

"  No,  dear,"  said  she.  You  wouldn't  have  known  this 
was  the  voice  that  could  thrill  with  scorn  and  satire. 
"  Phil  wasn't  any  nearer  to  her  than  you.  It's  the  one 
that  was  taken  that's  blotted  out  everybody  else.  If  it 
had  been  you  it  would  have  been  just  the  same.  She's 
got  a  mania.  She's  determined  to  hear  from  Phil.  She's 
lost  her  balance.  Your  mother  never  was  an  intellectual 
woman  and  she's  got  to  be  careful.  We've  got  to  be  care 
ful  of  her,  or  we  shall  find  her  more  changed  than  she  is 
now." 

She  sat  there,  not  looking  at  him,  and  he  was  thankful 
to  her.  He  knew  the  red  had  run  into  his  face,  it  was  so 
hot,  and  his  eyes  burned.  But  grandmother  didn't  pro 
pose  seeing  that,  though  she  was  so  wise  she  must  have 
known  it.  He  carried  the  old  hand  to  his  lips  and  kissed 
it,  and  kept  on  holding  it  while  he  leaped  to  the  business 
in  hand,  that  he  ought  not,  he  knew,  to  have  deferred  for 
even  this  assuaging  minute. 

"  When  is  she  going?  "  he  asked.    "  Miss  Bixby." 

She  thought  he  was  shunting  her  to  a  ground  less  per 
sonal  to  him,  and  she  was  willing.  She  respected  the 
boy's  dear  shynesses. 


188        THE  WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

"  At  once,"  she  answered,  and  drew  her  hand  from  his. 
They  had  to  get  back  into  the  beaten  tracks  of  custom. 
It  had  to  be  so  with  people  who  lived  together.  "  That  is, 
sometime  this  afternoon." 

"  Then,"  he  said,  "  it's  my  impression  she  must  be 
stopped." 

He  broke  into  the  tale  of  the  stolen  olympium  and  An 
drea's  belief  that  Miss  Bixby  had  taken  a  key  entrusted 
to  his  father  and  exchanged  the  two  cases,  one  with  its 
camera,  the  other  containing  the  olympium.  Madam 
Brooke  watched  him,  her  eyes  narrowed,  her  head  up, 
almost,  he  thought  once,  her  nostrils  widened  to  scent  the 
trail. 

"  Now  I'm  telling  it,"  he  said,  when  he  had  ended,  "  it 
seems  a  rotten  sort  of  yarn.  Perhaps  Andrea's  gone  dotty 
with  all  she's  been  through.  Sounds  pretty  fantastic, 
doesn't  it?  Tell  me  what  you  really  think." 

"  No,"  said  the  old  lady,  at  once.  "  It  isn't  at  all  fan 
tastic.  When  folks  begin  to  play  the  devil  it  always 
seems  a  little  queer,  especially  if  it  comes  to  you  in  a 
room  like  this  with  innocent  white  curtains  and  a  fire  on 
the  hearth.  But  if  you  found  another  camera  there,  I  wish 
you'd  taken  it  along  and  we  could  have  plumped  it  at  her 
and  told  her  she'd  gone  off  with  the  wrong  one.  Nothing 
like  a  finished  society  manner  in  these  things,  —  behaving 
like  a  perfect  lady." 

"  I  wish  I  had,"  said  Brooke.  "  But  I  didn't.  What 
can  I  do  now?  Go  to  her  room  and  ask  her  if  she's 
pinched  a  case  full  of  olympium?  Good  Lord,  grannie! 
I  don't  know  whether  there  ever  was  any  olympium.  And 
if  there  was  I  shouldn't  recognize  the  stuff.  She  could 
pass  me  a  tube  of  tooth  paste  and  say, '  Here  it  is.  Sorry 
I  made  off  with  it/  and  I  shouldn't  be  the  wiser.  I  should 
have  to  say,  '  Thanks.  That's  all  right/  " 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        189 

Madam  Brooke,  with  a  ready  alertness,  rose  from  her 
chair. 

"  You  can't  do  anything/'  she  said.  "  You  can't  go  to 
her  room  and  paw  over  her  things.  Your  father  couldn't. 
Your  mother  never'd  forgive  either  of  you.  And  you  can't 
call  in  the  police.  You  run  down  and  get  your  mother 
started  telling  you  about  automatic  writing  and  I'll  beard 
the  Bixby  in  her  den.  If  I  holler  you  come  up.  No,  I 
won't  holler.  That  would  fetch  your  mother,  too.  I'll 
crow  like  a  rooster.  Don't  you  know  how  you  boys  used 
to  keep  me  at  it  till  I  scraped  my  throat  raw?  If  you  hear 
that,  you  leg  it.  You'll  know  Bixby 's  got  me  down,  sit 
ting  on  my  chest." 

Brooke,  in  spite  of  his  certainty  that  things  were  fan 
tastically  wrong,  broke  into  a  laugh.  Madam  Brooke,  a 
queer  little  smile  twisting  her  mouth,  gathered  up  a  frosty 
looking  white  shawl  from  the  sofa  and  adjusted  it  about 
her  shoulders. 

"Bixby  is  one  of  those  hardy  perennials  that  like  a 
cold  room,"  said  she.  "  I  know  that  as  well  as  if  I'd  felt 
it.  Hurry  up.  Run  downstairs  to  your  mother  and  keep 
her  there.  But  if  I  crow,  you  come." 

Brooke,  not  half  believing  any  efficient  system  of  action 
was  open  to  her  and  yet  hopefully  knowing  she  would  stick 
at  nothing,  stood  there  while  she  went  out  of  the  room, 
turning  at  the  door  to  give  him  a  nod  of  reassurance  and 
the  broken  end  of  the  queer  smile.  Then  he  heard  her 
rustling  up  the  next  flight  of  stairs,  her  tap  at  Miss  Bix 
by 's  door  and  her  voice: 

"  May  I  come  in?  " 

He  thought  she  spoke  with  a  significant  loudness,  to  as 
sure  him  she  was  carrying  out  her  side  of  the  bargain. 
And  not  at  all  easy  in  his  own  part,  he  went  downstairs  to 
find  his  mother.  Of  that  one  thing  he  was  sure.  How- 


190        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

ever  much  or  little  reality  might  be  in  it,  she  must  not  be 
allowed  to  join  this  grotesque  mummery.  Mother  was 
not,  in  these  strange  days,  to  be  trusted.  She  might  break 
out,  and  Isabel  mentally  on  the  loose  was  something  he 
could  not  prefigure. 


XIX 

MADAM  BROOKE  stopped  at  Miss  Bixby's  door  and  lis 
tened.  There  were  sounds  within,  irregular  sounds,  at 
intervals,  of  some  one  moving  about,  stopping  now  and 
then,  it  might  be  to  fold  articles  and  dispose  of  them. 
Miss  Bixby  was  there  and  she  was  packing.  Then 
Madam  Brooke  knocked  and,  when  the  door  was  opened, 
as  it  was  almost  immediately,  put  her  request: 

"  May  I  come  in?  " 

Miss  Bixby  stood  before  her,  a  reduced  figure  in  the  un 
dress  for  exacting  deeds  that  owes  nothing  to  a  beguiling 
negligee.  She  was  in  her  stout  black  petticoat,  a  towel 
about  her  hair,  emphasizing  her  precautionary  neatness. 
Seeing  her  thus  shorn  of  her  uniform  of  the  exquisite  cuffs 
and  collar  and  the  irreproachable  plainness  of  her  dress, 
Madam  Brooke  felt  the  certainty  of  having  the  whip- 
hand.  No  woman  could,  she  believed,  carry  out  a  hostile 
encounter  creditably  in  such  a  petticoat.  Miss  Bixby 
was  taken  aback.  There  could  be  no  doubt  about  that. 
Madam  Brooke  had  never  come  to  her  door  before.  Per 
haps  no  member  of  the  family  ever  had.  The  perfect  or 
der  of  the  room,  hardly  infringed  upon  now  by  neat  piles 
of  clothing  that  lay  about  on  the  table  and  chairs,  might 
have  been  her  own  shell  for  all  the  invasion  that  had  ever 
troubled  it. 

"  I'm  sorry,  Madam  Brooke,"  she  declared.  "I'm  in 
such  confusion." 

191 


192       THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

"  Never  mind,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  smiling  at  her  a 
social  smile,  the  one  she  kept  for  calls  and  teas  of  the 
variety  that  made  her  face  ache  when  it  was  used  too  long 
consecutively.  "  I  won't  keep  you."  Which  was  a  lie,  she 
knew,  for  she  meant  to  keep  her  precisely  as  long  as  she 
liked.  She  gave  the  door  the  very  least  pressure  against 
Miss  Bixby's  repressive  hand  and  stepped  in,  slight  as  the 
space  was  for  her  soft  slenderness.  "  No,  I  won't  sit 
down."  Though  indeed  Miss  Bixby  had  not  asked  her  to. 
"  You're  packing,  I  see.  When  do  you  leave?  " 

"  I  leave  this  afternoon,"  said  Miss  Bixby.  There  was 
a  rasp  in  her  voice,  of  nervousness,  of  irritation,  it  was 
impossible  for  the  listener  to  tell  which.  "  And  really, 
Madam  Brooke,  I'm  very  busy." 

Madam  Brooke,  the  chairs  being  occupied,  perched  on 
the  end  of  a  couch,  also  burdened,  at  the  other  end,  by 
books  and  clothing.  She  was  aware,  in  the  under  part  of 
her  mind,  of  a  little  chorus  of  comment  on  these  things  she 
saw  before  her  in  the  exactitude  of  their  order.  "  Poor 
devil !  "  the  chorus  was  chanting,  though  not  in  any  way 
to  interrupt  the  business  at  hand,  "  how  can  she  expect 
to  sleep  the  sleep  of  natural  woman  in  a  nightie  like 
that?  "  It  was  before  her,  topping  the  pile,  unrelieved 
garments  of  stout  cloth  warranted  to  wear.  But  to  Miss 
Bixby,  she  remarked: 

"  I  wanted  to  remind  you  to  leave  Miss  Dove's  key. 
I'll  take  it  now,  if  you  please." 

The  slightest  possible  flicker  ran  over  Miss  Bixby's  face. 

"  My  latch  key,  Madam  Brooke? "  she  asked. 
"  Surely  I  will  leave  it.  I  never  for  a  moment  thought  of 
not  doing  so." 

"  Not  the  key  to  this  house,"  said  Madam  Brooke. 
"  Miss  Dove's  house." 

"  I  have  no  key  to  Miss  Dove's  house,"  said  she,  and 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS         193 

her  brows  contracted  slightly.  She  moistened  her  lips. 
"  Why  should  you  think  I  had  a  key  to  Miss  Dove's 
house?  " 

"  I  assumed  that/'  said  Madam  Brooke  frankly.  "  I 
guessed  at  it.  I  knew  you  had  been  in  there  when  no  one 
was  at  home,  and  I  assumed  you  took  the  key  she  left  with 
Mr.  Harvey.  However,  that's  immaterial.  I  merely 
thought  I'd  begin  with  the  key.  Miss  Bixby,  if  you  will 
kindly  give  me  Mr.  Dove's  camera  I  will  see  that  you  have 
yours.  No  questions  asked,  you  know.  Simply  give  me 
the  camera." 

Now  Miss  Bixby  laughed,  whole-heartedly  and  with 
relief. 

"  Madam  Brooke,"  said  she,  "  I  haven't  Mr.  Dove's 
camera  nor  anything  that  is  his.  And  really  you  are  de 
laying  me  a  lot  about  my  packing.  I  hate  to  say  so,  but 
you  are,  you  know." 

"  Then,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  musing,  "  if  it's  not  here 
what  have  you  done  with  it?  " 

Miss  Bixby  did  not  answer.  Madam  Brooke  rose  and 
the  two  stood  looking  at  each  other,  the  older  woman  re 
flective,  Miss  Bixby  with  the  light  of  something  growingly 
confident  in  her  gaze.  It  looked  to  her  antagonist  as  if 
she  had  suddenly  begun  to  feel  herself  on  top. 

"  No,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  you  act  as  if  you  were 
telling  the  truth.  It  may  not  be  here.  But  if  it  isn't, 
where  is  it?  " 

She  began  to  look  about  the  room  as  if  she  inventoried 
its  orderly  disorder.  There  were  the  piles  of  clothing,  the 
books,  Miss  Bixby 's  hat  and  jacket  on  a  chair  by  the  desk, 
her  little  hand-bag  on  the  desk  itself;  and  Madam  Brooke 
absently  reflected  that  she  must  have  been  indeed  hurried, 
with  all  her  methodical  ways,  not  to  have  hung  up  her 
coat  when  she  came  in. 


194        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

"  Fm  sorry,"  said  she.  "  It'll  be  an  awful  job,  but  I 
shall  have  to  go  through  your  things." 

"  Go  through  my  things?  "  echoed  Miss  Bixby.  A  round 
red  spot  had  come  into  each  cheek,  and  Madam  Brooke, 
observing  it,  approved.  She  was  glad  the  irreproachable 
creature  had  some  blood  in  her.  "  Go  through  my 
things?  "  she  repeated.  "  I'll  call  the  police." 

"  Do,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  with  an  air  of  cheerful  re 
lief.  "  It's  a  job  I  don't  hanker  for.  They'll  help  me." 

Miss  Bixby  stood  for  an  instant  in  silence  while  Madam 
Brooke,  shaking  her  head  as  if  she  hated  the  prospect, 
gave  her  a  glance  of  apology  emphasised  by  anxious 
brows,  lifted  a  pile  of  clothing  from  a  chair  and  looked 
under  it.  Miss  Bixby,  after  that  one  pause,  evidently 
threw  something  to  the  winds,  her  professional  manner, 
her  prudence  or  her  recognition  of  an  antagonist  it  was 
not  wisdom  to  defy.  She  started  forward. 

"  Madam  Brooke,"  said  she,  "  you  just  put  down  my 
underclothes.  Madam  Brooke,  I  won't  have  it.  I  shall 
—  I  shall  touch  you." 

The  last  she  said  breathlessly,  but  she  meant  it  in  all 
its  imaginable  entirety.  It  was  a  good  deal  of  a  threat, 
and  was  candidly  meant  to  be.  Madam  Brooke  stood 
looking  at  her  a  moment,  considering,  it  was  evident, 
ways  and  means.  Then  she  stepped  to  the  door,  put  her 
head  out,  meantime  leaving  the  rest  of  her  slight  person 
in  the  room  in  order  that  the  impulse  of  a  push  might  not 
force  her  into  the  corridor,  and  crowed,  loud  and  clear. 
It  was  a  pity  she  could  not,  listening  as  she  did  after  the 
crow,  have  seen  Miss  Bixby 's  face.  It  was  moved  by  a 
deep  perplexity  and  concern.  Miss  Bixby  plainly  thought 
the  old  lady  had  lost  her  wits  and  was  mentally  preparing 
to  deal  with  her  now  from  that  angle  of  psychology. 

"Ah!  •"  breathed  Madam  Brooke. 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        195 

She  heard  her  grandson  running  up  the  stairs.  And 
when  he  had  reached  the  second  floor  he,  too,  heard  some 
thing  arresting,  as  Madam  Brooke  did.  It  was  his  mother 
from  below. 

"  Brooke,"  she  called,  "  is  that  your  grandmother  crow 
ing?  " 

This  enlightened  Miss  Bixby  to  the  point  of  allowing 
her  to  shift  her  psychology  to  the  angle  prescribed  for 
attacking  the  technically  sane.  Evidently  that  crow  was 
part  of  the  family  tradition.  It  had  been  heard  before. 
Madam  Brooke  listened.  Brooke  paused  a  moment  be 
fore  answering. 

"  Yes/'  he  responded  then,  "  same  old  performance,  re 
quest  programme." 

Madam  Brooke  was  smiling  at  that  when  he  confronted 
her  after  his  run  up  the  second  flight. 

"  I  couldn't  have  her  coming  up,"  he  explained,  "  to  see 
what  the  matter  was.  I  wonder  she  asked.  She  knows 
your  crow." 

"  Brooke,"  said  his  grandmother, "  I  find  myself  obliged 
to  look  over  Miss  Bixby 's  things.  I  want  you  "  —  she 
was  about  to  add,  "  I  want  you  to  come  in  and  stand  by 
me  while  I  do  it."  But  a  vision  of  the  austere  piles  of 
clothing  rose  before  her  and  she  simply  couldn't  say  that. 
Should  she,  a  woman  merciful  in  some  degree,  admit  a 
man,  and  a  young  man,  into  the  privacies  of  Miss  Bixby's 
unadorned  life?  "  You  stay  here,"  she  said,  "  just  out 
side-  the  door.  Don't  let  anybody  go  out  or  come  in. 
And  if  I  call  you,  come." 

The  latter  she  said,  with  a  purpose,  loudly  enough  for 
Miss  Bixby's  ears,  lest  there  lingered  in  that  enraged  mind 
the  unformulated  purpose  of  touching  her.  Brooke  did 
not  like  his  job.  That  was  plain,  and  yet  it  was  also 
plain,  his  grandmother  reflected,  that  he  would  like  it 


196        THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

still  less  if  he  crossed  the  sill  and  guessed  from  the  tell 
tale  confusion  within  what  course  her  own  activities  would 
have  to  take. 

"  I  don't  fancy  this,"  he  said.  "  I  wish  you'd  keep  out 
of  it  and  let  me  —  let  things  take  the  usual  course." 

By  which  she  understood  that  he  meant  the  usual  course 
when  something  had  presumably  been  stolen.  In  that 
case  you  called  in  the  police  and  refrained  from  undertak 
ing  possibly  unjustifiable  courses  yourself.  But  she  fore 
saw  her  way,  and  she  was  also  perfectly  aware  that  her 
own  obstinacy  of  purpose  was  too  well  known  in  the 
household  to  need  more  than  simple  reiteration. 

"  I  know  what  I'm  doing,"  she  said.  "  You  let  me  alone 
and  just  hang  about  outside  there.  And  if  your  mother 
comes,  cut  away  and  don't  let  her  see  you.  You  can  run 
up  to  the  attic  and  let  her  find  you  rummaging  old  maga 
zines."  She  was  about  turning  back  to  her  task  when  a 
second  thought  arrested  her.  "  On  the  whole,"  she  said, 
"  we'd  better  be  locked  in,  Miss  Bixby  and  I.  You  take 
the  key  "  —  she  drew  it  from  the  lock  and  passed  it  out 
to  him  —  "  and  lock  us  in.  Then  if  your  mother  comes 
you  can  be  safely  up  attic,  and  if  she  knocks,  Miss  Bixby 
and  I'll  keep  still  and  there  won't  be  any  fuss." 

Brooke  looked  his  aversion  to  locking  the  door  even, 
but  she  thrust  the  key  into  his  unwilling  fingers  and,  like 
other  great  commanders,  not  pausing  to  see  her  orders 
carried  out,  shut  the  door.  At  the  same  instant  she  heard 
behind  her  a  rattle  of  what  might  have  been  falling  par 
ticles  and  she  did  start  and  look  over  her  shoulder  with  an 
answering  quickness  that  told  her  how  apprehensive  she 
really  was.  The  next  instant  she  was  smiling  at  her  un 
stable  nerves.  What  would  Miss  Bixby  be  likely  to  do 
to  her  here  in  plain  daylight  with  Brooke  outside  the 
door?  And  Miss  Bixby,  though  glowering,  did  not  look 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS         197 

in  any  lurid  sense  dangerous.  There  she  stood,  her  back 
to  the  fireplace,  that  most  commanding  vantage  point  in 
any  room,  her  arms  folded,  her  face  dark  red.  Madam 
Brooke  was  not,  she  told  herself,  in  the  least  afraid  of 
Miss  Bixby,  yet  underneath  the  ordered  forces  of  her  mind 
quivered  an  excited  sense  that  something  not  to  be  predi 
cated  would  happen  if  the  woman  did  carry  out  that 
vague  threat  of  touching  her.  and  she  was  quite  aware  of 
her  state  as  a  frail  old  lady  unused  to  being  jostled. 
Then,  after  this  slight  pause,  perhaps  emphasising  his  dis 
like  of  doing  it,  she  heard  Brooke  lock  the  door.  The 
sound  itself,  testifying  to  something  done,  brought  her  a 
breath  of  relief,  and  she  found  herself  ready  for  Miss 
Bixby  who,  ready  apparently  for  her,  cut  in  on  the  old 
system  of  getting  her  blow  in  first. 

"  If  anybody  knocks,  you  and  I'll  keep  still,  will  we?  " 
she  inquired,  in  a  smothered  voice  of  such  intensity  that 
it  sounded,  Madam  Brooke  thought,  exactly  as  her  face 
looked.  The  face  was  mahogany  red  and  so  was  the 
voice.  "  You  needn't  think  I  shall  keep  still.  I'll  scream 
my  head  off." 

"  Then,"  said  Madam  Brooke  composedly,  "  you'll  be 
a  silly  girl.  You  heard  what  my  grandson  said.  He  ob 
jected  to  my  going  on  with  this.  He  preferred  the  usual 
way.  You  know  what  the  usual  way  is.  The  police. 
Do  you  want  the  police  muddling  over  your  things?  And 
when  youVe  called  'em  in,  it  isn't  so  easy  to  get  rid  of  'em. 
Police  means  the  law,  and  the  law  is  a  great  automatic 
dragon  made  to  snap  your  head  off  in  the  end.  You'd 
far  better  trust  yourself  to  a  sensible  old  woman  like  me 
who'll  just  go  round  lifting  up  your  nighties  to  see  what's 
under  'em." 

And  she  was  actually  proceeding  from  chair  to  chair  in 
vestigating  the  piles  of  garments,  shaking  them  out  and 


198        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

refolding  them  with  the  utmost  nicety.  Miss  Bixby  made 
no  answer,  but  her  face,  Madam  Brooke  saw,  as  she  lifted 
her  head  for  a  glance  at  her,  did  not  pale  by  a  shade. 
Madam  Brooke  was  sorry  for  that.  She  was  honestly 
concerned  for  fear  the  girl  would  have  what  she  called 
a  rush  of  blood  to  the  head.  Suddenly  she  straightened 
and  looked  at  Miss  Bixby  in  a  community  of  interest. 

"  This  isn't  efficiency,"  said  she.  "  It  was  those  Ger 
mans,  wasn't  it,  that  were  always  talking  about  efficiency? 
Well,  there's  something  in  it,  after  all,  though  I  fancy  you 
can  carry  it  too  far.  How  silly  it  is  for  me  to  go  round 
handling  your  clothes  over,  when  you've  got  to  pack  'em 
in  the  end.  Here !  you  let  me  pass  'em  to  you  as  I  exam 
ine  'em  and  you  put  'em  into  the  trunk." 

"  Madam  Brooke,"  said  Miss  Bixby  violently,  "  I  will 
not  allow  you  to  meddle  with  my  packing.  I  simply  will 
not  allow  it." 

"  Nonsense !  "  said  Madam  Brooke.  "  I  never  should 
have  suspected  you'd  be  such  a  silly  girl.  You  were  as 
calm  as  a  bureau  or  a  school  desk.  Now  let's  begin 
methodically.  What  do  you  want  in  first?  the  books? 
I  don't  believe  I  need  to  shake  those.  You  couldn't  hide 
a  couple  of  thimblefuls  of  the  stuff  they've  lost  in  a  book, 
now  could  you?  Not  that  I  know  how  the  thing  looks. 
I  suppose  you  do.  Here,  take  these." 

She  was,  with  a  charming  smile,  proffering  Miss  Bixby 
a  pile  of  books  lifted  from  the  floor.  Miss  Bixby,  her 
arms  rigidly  folded,  refused  to  take  them.  Madam 
Brooke,  standing  before  her,  the  books  held  at  arm's 
length,  her  slender  hands  trembling  upon  them,  gave  a 
little  head-shake  of  discouragement  and  then  proceeded 
herself  to  put  them  into  the  trunk.  She  did  it  rapidly 
and  with  great  accuracy  of  care.  It  was  beautiful  pack 
ing,  Miss  Bixby  unwillingly  realised,  as  she  watched  her 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS         199 

in  a  scornful  repudiation  she  hoped  Madam  Brooke  would 
look  up  and  see.  Madam  Brooke  did  not  look  up.  She 
continued  her  task  deftly,  and  yet  with  a  subtile  implica 
tion  of  its  being  too  much  for  her  which  Miss  Bixby  could 
have  wept  over,  it  was  so  odious.  When  the  books  were 
in,  a  layer  of  them,  Madam  Brooke  looked  about  her,  con 
sidering. 

"  Now,"  she  said,  "  the  shoes.  I  believe  they  come 
next,  though  it's  so  many  years  since  I've  packed  I've  for 
gotten  some  of  the  tricks.  It's  amazing  how  useless  an 
old  woman  gets  to  be  with  everybody  running  to  pad  her 
against  the  sharp  corners.  And  if  I'd  realised  I  was  to 
pack  for  you,  I  could  have  had  the  trunk  set  up  on  some 
thing.  This  stooping  is  the  dickens  and  all." 

She  was  peering  into  the  shoes,  taking  out  their  trees  and, 
with  an  exaggerated  difficulty,  putting  them  back  again; 
Miss  Bixby's  serviceable  calf  boots  they  were,  and  the  girl 
could  have  wept  anew  to  see  them  in  those  delicate  hands. 
And  Madam  Brooke,  as  if  doubtful  whether  she  had  per 
formed  her  task  thoroughly,  took  out  the  trees  again, 
turned  the  boots  sole  upward  and  shook  them  vigorously. 
At  this  point  Miss  Bixby  could  not  have  been  sure  she 
might  not  have  wept  at  all  the  various  stages  of  the  scene. 
Perhaps  her  trained  professional  decorum  was  left  her 
unmarred.  Perhaps  she  had  enough  appreciation  of  the 
difference  in  plumage  of  an  old  lady  who  rustled  about  in 
soft  silks  and  of  herself  tramping  in  what  is  known  poeti 
cally  as  frieze.  The  age-long  frenzies  over  the  inequali 
ties  of  life  that  are  responsible,  more  than  individual  op 
pressions,  for  what  is  known  as  class  hatred,  embittered 
her.  But  at  any  rate,  without  being  conscious  of  any 
thing  beyond  a  helpless  admiration  for  Madam  Brooke, 
her  address,  her  practical  capabilities,  Miss  Bixby  had  a 
moment  now  of  wishing  her  unconscious,  palsied  or 


200        THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

plainly  dead.  It  is  not  so  culpable  to  wish  a  devilishly 
active  enemy  dead  as  might  be  supposed.  The  exasper 
ated  sufferer  from  that  enemy's  activities  is  merely  seizing 
the  last  weapon  left  him  in  the  psychological  armory, 
and  he  isn't  solemnly  consigning  his  tormentor  to  the 
dread  ordeal  of  a  theological  judgment.  He  merely 
means  he  wishes  he  were  once  and  for  all  —  and  absolutely 
for  the  general  good  —  blotted  out  as  an  active  force  of 
exasperation. 

"  Do  you  wrap  up  your  shoes?  "  Madam  Brooke  was 
asking  practically.  "  Shoe  bags  or  anything?  I  have 
little  squares  all  over  roses  as  bright  as  I  can  get.  When 
you're  not  supposed  to  so  much  as  dip  your  finger  into  the 
dye  pot  any  more,  because  you're  old,  it's  a  great  tempta 
tion  to  paint  everything  up  like  cockatoos.  Perhaps  I'd 
better  use  a  bit  of  paper.  I  hate  to  have  them  touch  the 
books." 

She  looked  at  Miss  Bixby  brightly,  in  a  waiting  deliber 
ation  that  seemed  to  demand  even  the  smallest  shade  of 
sympathetic  interest  in  return.  But  Miss  Bixby  did  not 
answer. 

"  Ah,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  now  I've  got  the  cart  be 
fore  the  horse.  Here  is  a  pair  without  trees.  And  there 
are  the  trees  on  that  chair  by  you.  Hand  them  to  me, 
like  a  good  girl." 

Still  Miss  Bixby  stood  immovable.  Still  her  face  was 
set  in  its  mahogany  calm.  Madam  Brooke  gave  a  little 
sigh  of  gentle  discouragement. 

"  Well,  well,"  she  said,  "  you  certainly  are  a  naughty 
girl,  aren't  you?  When  you  sat  down  there  at  that  table 
writing  out  headlines  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven  who'd 
have  thought  —  " 

She  put  down  the  shoes  as  if  it  hurt  her  to  do  it,  crossed 
the  room  as  if  that  also  hurt,  took  up  the  trees,  came  back 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS        201 

and  inserted  them  in  the  shoes  with  an  amount  of  difficulty 
Miss  Bixby  saw  through  completely.  It  hadn't  been 
difficult  to  cross  the  room,  it  hadn't  been  in  the  least  a 
complicated  task  to  insert  the  shoe  trees  in  the  shoes. 
The  old  lady  was  acting,  and  acting  to  impress  her,  play 
ing  old  age  for  all  it  was  worth  to  break  down  her  adver 
sary's  guard.  It  was  simply  another  way  of  fighting  and 
Miss  Bixby  knew  it,  and  yet  her  guard  was  broken  and 
she  had  to  yield. 

"  Oh,"  she  said,  in  a  voice  that  defied  her  and  shook 
with  every  syllable,  "  I  wouldn't  treat  anybody  so  — 
there  isn't  a  person  in  the  world  I  hate  enough  to  treat 
'em  as  you're  treating  me.  Here!  give  me  those  things. 
If  you've  got  to  shake  'em,  I'll  fold  'em  and  put  'em  in." 

Madam  Brooke  accorded  her  an  approving  smile. 

"  That's  a  good  girl,"  said  she.    "  Now  we  shall  get  on." 

So  they  packed  together,  Madam  Brooke  apparently 
absorbed  in  her  task  and  Miss  Bixby  silently  weeping. 
Having  begun,  it  seemed  as  if  she  couldn't  stop,  though 
she  caught  a  great  breath,  from  time  to  time,  with  an 
effort  of  drawing  back  a  fist  to  have  at  her  emotion. 
Madam  Brooke,  glancing  at  her  once  and  asking  if  she 
didn't  think  a  jacket  she  was  painfully  shaking  would 
keep  its  shape  better  if  it  had  some  crumpled  paper  in  the 
sleeves,  thought  she  had  never  seen  anybody  make  such 
hard  work  of  crying  as  Miss  Bixby.  Her  face  con 
tracted  into  lines  it  was  horror  to  look  upon.  She  pressed 
her  lips  together  until  they  got  away  from  her  and  snarled 
up  into  hideous  contours,  she  shut  her  eyes  and  the  tears 
somehow  got  through.  It  was  a  crumbled  aqueduct  of 
emotion,  and  Madam  Brooke  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  girl,  immured  in  the  necessities  of  her  exacting  life, 
had  never,  perhaps,  since  she  was  a  child,  felt  at  liberty 
to  cry  and  this  was  the  raging  of  a  liberated  flood. 


202         THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

"  It  almost  seems,"  said  Madam  Brooke  persuasively, 
at  one  point,  "  as  if  we'd  got  pretty  nearly  done  and  we 
haven't  come  on  what  we're  hunting  for." 

At  this  Miss  Bixby  bit  her  lip  with  an  unthinking  sav 
agery  that  squeezed  out  of  her  an  "  Oh !  "  of  pain.  The 
situation  was  the  more  unbearable  in  that  they  were  not 
now  flashing  back  the  demand  and  rebuff  of  declared 
enemies.  Here  they  were  packing  in  apparent  amity  and 
Madam  Brooke  was  pleasantly  implying  their  joint  in 
terest  in  finding  the  concealed  case.  Suddenly  she 
stopped,  this  terrible  old  lady,  holding  a  shepherd's  plaid 
waist  before  her  like  a  cuirass,  and,  inadvertently  though 
she  did  it,  it  seemed  to  Miss  Bixby  that  it  was  a  part  of 
her  astute  hatefulness  to  hold  it  so  that  the  unbound 
seams  within  were  shamefully  visible.  It  was  an  un 
worthy  waist,  made  by  Miss  Bixby  to  wear  in  her  room 
to  save  her  secretarial  uniform,  and  here  it  confronted 
her  to  loose  a  deeper  depth  in  the  fount  of  tears.  How 
could  you  expect  a  woman  who  had  made  such  a  waist 
and  furthermore  worn  it,  to  endure  the  interrogation  of  a 
woman  in  violet  silk?  There  they  stood,  the  symbolic 
plaid  insignia  of  their  differences  between  them,  the  ragged 
seams  turned  cruelly  to  the  light. 

"  Well,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  we've  got  the  trunk  al 
most  packed,  haven't  we,  and  we  haven't  found  anything 
after  all.  What  shall  we  try  next?  " 

"  We !  "  Miss  Bixby  wanted  to  cry  explosively,  to 
knock  some  appreciation  of  the  monstrosity  of  it  all  into 
the  old  lady's  head  with  the  sheer  satiric  weight  of  the 
word.  But  when  she  would  have  hurled  it  forth,  her 
mouth  curled  up  again  in  continued  weeping  and  the  salt 
flood  wet  her  lips. 

"  You  see,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  I  shouldn't  have 
gone  to  the  trouble  of  shaking  all  these  things  if  I  hadn't 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS         203 

thought  the  stuff  might  have  been  taken  out  of  the  case 
and  the  case  thrown  away.  They  do  that  in  books,  you 
know.  It  would  be  a  shame,  now  wouldn't  it,  if  I'd  read 
so  many  detective  stories  for  nothing?  If  I  only  knew 
how  the  stuff  looks!  it  might  be  dry  and  you  put  it  into 
envelopes,  or  it  might  be  a  paste  and  you  packed  it  in  cold 
cream  jars.  How  the  dickens  does  the  thing  look?  I 
rather  think  I Ve  got  to  go  over  your  toilet  articles.  What 
do  you  say?  " 

What  did  she  say?  Miss  Bixby  choked  upon  that. 
She  had  a  wild  suspicion  that  she'd  got  to  hold  on  to  her 
self  or  Madam  Brooke  would  have  her  hypnotised  into 
assuming  they  were  allies  in  a  common  cause.  Suddenly 
something  queer  in  the  old  lady's  face  struck  her  with  an 
alarm  that  dried  her  tears  on  the  very  instant,  leaving 
nothing  behind  them  but  an  occasional  sobbing  breath. 
Madam  Brooke,  who  had  been  holding  the  symbolic  waist 
absent-mindedly  before  her,  lowered  her  hands,  mechan 
ically  folded  it  and  laid  it  on  a  chair. 

"  I  believe,"  she  said,  "  I  am  a  born  fool.  Anybody'd 
say  if  my  detective  stories  hadn't  done  me  any  more  good 
than  this  I  might  as  well  have  been  reading  the  Psalms." 

She  crossed  the  room  with  a  light  tread,  not  at  all  the 
tread  of  an  old  lady  trying  to  prove  by  illustration  how 
unable  she  was,  from  sheer  physical  frailty,  to  pack  a 
trunk,  and  thrust  her  hand  up  the  chimney.  Miss  Bixby, 
who  had  turned  with  her,  gave  a  little  smothered  excla 
mation,  clenched  her  hands  at  her  sides  and  bade  herself 
stand  still.  From  the  intensity  of  her  face  it  might  have 
been  said  she  was  praying  for  something  and  praying 
hard. 

"  No,"  said  Madam  Brooke  to  herself,  "  no !  But  that's 
what  they'd  do." 

She  felt  along  the  ledge  of  bricks,  and  her  hand  brought 


204         THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

down  a  little  shower  of  hardened  soot.  Her  face  lighted 
and  she  glanced  back  at  Miss  Bixby  in  a  child's  ingenuous 
delight. 

"  That's  the  same  sound,"  she  said,  "  the  very  sound  I 
heard  when  I  was  talking  with  Brooke  at  the  door.  And 
when  I  turned  to  look,  two  or  three  of  these  little  pellets 
rolled  across  the  hearth.  Oh,  we're  warm,  we're  decidedly 
warm." 

Miss  Bixby  looked,  at  that  moment,  as  if  she  found  the 
praying  formula  inadequate.  But  she  was  not  entirely 
without  hope,  not  until  Madam  Brooke's  hand  stopped 
and  her  slim  shoulders  began  trembling.  She  gave  a  little 
shrill  cry  and  brought  out,  in  her  blackened  hand,  a  bag. 
Now  she  was  shaking  all  over  and  laughing  in  an  excited 
triumph. 

"  Didn't  I  tell  you?  "  she  cried.  "  They  always  put  it 
up  the  chimney.  They  put  the  revolver  there  and  the 
stolen  gems.  What  a  fool  we  were  not  to  look  there  first." 

The  implied  community  of  interest  was  again  too  much 
for  Miss  Bixby.  "We!  "  her  lips  rounded  to  say,  and 
this  time  they  managed  it.  Madam  Brooke  was  gazing 
at  the  bag. 

"  But  bless  me !  "  she  cried,  in  a  naive  astonishment, 
"  it's  not  a  case.  It's  your  hand-bag."  Her  voice 
mounted  until  it  was  a  needle-fine  note  of  shrill  interro 
gation.  "  That  bag  was  lying  on  the  desk  when  I  came 
into  this  room.  And  I  hadn't  noticed  it  was  gone.  It 
was  only  just  now  I  happened  to  think  how  the  rubble 
fell  down  the  chimney  when  I  stood  there  at  the  door. 
But  of  course  you  threw  away  the  case,  didn't  you?  You 
put  the  stuff  into  your  bag.  Let's  open  it  and  see  how 
their  olympium  looks." 

She  sat  down  in  a  chair  by  the  hearth  and  had  her  fin 
gers  at  the  clasp  when  Miss  Bixby  made  a  little  rush 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        205 

across  the  room  and  stopped  beside  her.  She  bent  over 
her  and  Madam  Brooke,  inwardly  persuaded  that  she  was 
about  to  snatch  the  bag,  ceased  trying  to  move  the  fas 
tening  and  put  both  hands  on  it,  pressing  it  down  upon  her 
knees.  But  Miss  Bixby,  who  had  never  lost  the  con 
sciousness  of  Brooke  outside  the  door,  had  only  bent  to 
speak  into  her  ear.  She  could  not  hope  Brooke  had  gone 
away,  although  at  some  moments  it  was  so  still  she  al 
most  believed  he  had.  And  now,  if  Madam  Brooke  could 
be  made  to  understand  how  dangerous  it  was  to  brave  a 
woman  beyond  the  limits  of  her  endurance,  she  would 
try,  for  both  their  sakes  to  make  her.  For  Miss  Bixby 
was  frightened,  not  so  much  at  the  prospect  of  accusations 
and  punishment  as  at  the  unleashed  possibilities  she  felt 
stirring  within  herself.  She  was  so  angry  that  she  was 
afraid  of  her  own  anger.  It  looked  to  her,  at  that  last  mo 
ment,  like  a  creature,  a  demon,  that  had  escaped  from  her 
control  and  might  do  ungoverned  things. 

"  Madam  Brooke,"  she  said,  her  voice  at  the  old  lady's 
ear,  the  low  menace  of  it  so  arresting  that  Madam  Brooke 
turned  her  head  to  look  at  her.  "  Madam  Brooke !  " 

There  they  were,  their  faces  close,  gazing  into  each 
other's  eyes,  Miss  Bixby  afraid  of  her  demon  and  Madam 
Brooke,  though  she  was  gravely  aware  of  some  unformu- 
lated  danger,  at  last  afraid  of  nothing.  But  she  too  had 
seen  Miss  Bixby's  demon,  and  she  gave  it  no  chance  to 
strike  first.  She  gathered  her  stiff  muscles  for  a  concerted 
movement,  sprang  out  of  the  chair  and  stood  in  front  of 
the  fireplace,  her  eyes  upon  Miss  Bixby's. 

"  Brooke!  "  she  called,  in  a  calm,  carrying  voice.  "  Are 
you  there?  " 

She  had  her  one  moment  of  nauseating  recoil  as  it  oc 
curred  to  her  that  he  might  not  be  there.  He  might  not 
have  heard  her,  he  might  have  walked  to  the  end  of  the 


206        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

hall.  And  in  the  moment  that  would  pass  before  she 
could  call  louder,  there  was  Miss  Bixby's  demon.  But 
the  voice  came,  close  by  the  door,  a  little  anxious,  but 
above  all  steady. 

"All  right.    Want  me?" 

At  the  instant,  it  seemed  to  Madam  Brooke  she  must 
yield  to  the  sob  that  leaped  to  her  throat.  But  she  kept 
it  there.  If  Miss  Bixby  got  wind  of  the  sob,  it  must 
have  appeared  to  her  a  muscular  convulsion  only.  And 
Miss  Bixby  groaned,  a  long  moan  like  a  creature  in  pain. 
Her  demon  was  going,  exorcised  by  the  voice.  And  after 
the  physical  anguish  of  the  demon's  coming,  his  domi 
nance  over  her  own  nerves  and  muscles,  he  had  hurt  no 
body  but  her. 

"  No,  Brooke,"  the  old  lady  called,  in  a  voice  as  steady 
as  his  own.  "  Not  yet.  Be  on  hand.  When  I  tell  you, 
come."  Then  she  turned  to  Miss  Bixby.  She  spoke  to 
her  as  the  cruelly  kind  speak  to  the  hysterical.  "  Get 
hold  of  yourself.  You  look  a  perfect  sight.  Sit  down  in 
that  chair,  and  don't  speak  another  syllable  while  I  open 
the  bag." 


XX 

Miss  BIXBY  sank  into  the  chair.  Her  demon  had  left 
her  faint  and  ill.  It  was  cloudy  before  her  eyes  and  she 
felt  the  nausea  of  an  outraged  solar  plexus.  The  sensa 
tion  was  so  foreign  to  her  that  she  acquiesced  in  it  and 
sat  staring  blankly.  Madam  Brooke  also  sat. 

"  Now,"  said  she,  with  the  cheerfulness,  Miss  Bixby 
drearily  thought,  of  the  person  who  has  got  his  own  way, 
"  let's  see  what  we  have  here."  She  opened  the  bag, 
stretched  it  to  its  full  capacity  and  looked.  "  A  hand 
kerchief,"  said  she,  in  rising  dismay.  "A  purse.  Eye 
glasses.  Nothing  else.  Not  a  single  thing.  Well,  I  am 
—  "  What  she  was  she,  stopping  in  utter  blankness,  left 
the  onlooker  to  imagine. 

Miss  Bixby,  with  luck  coming  her  way,  felt  herself 
recovering.  Her  blood  seemed  to  resume  its  normal 
course  and  the  mist  cleared  from  before  her  eyes. 

"  Now,"  said  she,  in  a  voice  she  managed  to  stiffen  into 
its  accustomed  dry  adequacy,  "  perhaps  you'll  be  kind 
enough  to  shut  my  bag  and  give  it  back  to  me." 

Madam  Brooke  did  partially  shut  it,  only  omitting  to 
complete  the  act  by  snapping  the  clasp.  She  sat  looking 
blankly  before  her,  once  or  twice,  by  a  movement  of  the 
eyes,  including  Miss  Bixby  in  her  field  of  vision,  her  fore 
head  taut  with  concentration.  Now,  from  a  growing  in- 
tentness,  she  regarded  Miss  Bixby  alone.  Miss  Bixby 
wouldn't,  she  began  to  believe,  show  quite  so  eager  a  re 
vival  of  interest  in  the  occasion  if  it  didn't  mean  some- 

207 


208        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

thing  significant  to  her  to  get  the  bag  back  into  her  own 
hands. 

"  And,"  said  Madam  Brooke  thoughtfully,  "  there  isn't 
the  leastest  mite  of  a  thing  here  that  looks  like  any  of 
their  laboratory  stuff.  Yet  I  do  feel  warm." 

Miss  Bixby,  watching  her,  was  more  and  more  pal 
pably  coming  to  life.  She  was  eager  now.  A  light  had 
come  into  her  black  eyes.  She  was  not  only  in  suspense; 
her  eagerness  was  consuming  her. 

"  There's  one  thing,"  said  Madam  Brooke  reflectively, 
still  watching  her  to  see  how  she  took  the  mounting  stages 
of  this  fumbling  supposition.  "  The  key,  —  the  key  you 
stole  from  Mrs.  Harvey's  drawer.  That  isn't  important, 
only  we  might  as  well  know  where  that  key  is.  If  you've 
got  it,  as  we  think,  at  least  it'll  prove  you've  been  where 
you  might  have  taken  the  other  thing.  We  might  as 
well  —  " 

She  opened  the  bag  again  to  its  full  capacity  and  turned 
it  over  in  her  lap.  Miss  Bixby,  with  a  little  exasperated 
cry,  was  upon  her,  crouching  at  her  feet,  her  hands  upon 
the  small  confusion  of  articles  released.  But  though  she 
was  the  stronger,  Madam  Brooke  was  quicker-witted. 
She  sprang  to  her  feet  and  allowed  the  things  to  fall  in 
confusion  to  the  floor,  and  when  they  separated  there,  to 
roll  on  their  individual  ways,  stooped  like  a  flash  and 
picked  up  the  purse  because  Miss  Bixby,  over-balanced 
for  a  moment,  also  lunged  for  it.  Madam  Brooke  backed 
with  it  to  the  door,  and  then  she  spoke  so  tartly  that  Miss 
Bixby,  miserably  collecting  the  disorder  of  things  on  the 
rug,  stopped  in  the  act  and  stared  at  her. 

"  I  should  think,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  you'd  know 
better  than  to  make  a  woman  of  my  age  snap  round  like 
this  and  strain  her  muscles  to  fiddle  strings.  Now  I've 
got  it  and  I  shall  examine  it  and  you  can  see  me  do  it." 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        209 

She  opened  the  purse,  a  square  wallet  of  black  pebbled 
leather,  and  glanced  first  into  the  little  pocket  at  the  side. 
That  would  be  the  logical  place  for  a  key.  There  was 
nothing  there.  She  stopped  short  with  a  comical  air  of 
complete  dismay  that  would  have  made  an  onlooker  less 
sore  beset  than  Miss  Bixby  shout  with  laughter.  She 
herself  laughed. 

"  You  baggage,"  said  she,  "  you're  a  clever  one,  or  else 
I'm  not  so  clever  as  I  thought.  You're  a  regular  magpie 
for  hiding,  aren't  you?  You're  better  than  any  detective 
story,  standing  there  looking  like  a  tomb." 

To  Miss  Bixby,  facing  her  unmoved,  she  seemed  to  be 
enjoying  the  situation  with  such  open-minded  hilarity 
that  the  secretary  hated  her  with  a  rush  of  energy  foreign 
to  her  ordered  emotions. 

"  Perhaps,"  said  she,  with  acidity,  "  you  might  give  me 
back  my  purse." 

"  One  moment,"  said  Madam  Brooke.  "  Then  I  will. 
And  with  apologies.  Here's  this  little  flap."  She  turned 
it  back  and  drew  out  two  pieces  of  cardboard.  The  signifi 
cance  of  them  together  there  flashed  upon  her  instantly 
and  she  gave  a  little  hoot  of  triumph.  "  A  ticket  to  New 
York.  A  parcel  room  check,  South  Station.  I  know  it 
is,  for  I  left  a  parcel  there  myself  not  ten  days  ago.  I 
needn't  die  yet,"  cried  the  old  lady.  "  I  am  as  clever  as 
anybody  need  to  be." 

"If  you  think,"  said  Miss  Bixby,  now  regarding  her 
with  a  perfect  composure,  "  it's  clever  to  recognise  a  rail 
road  ticket  and  a  parcel  room  check,  you're  easily  satis 
fied." 

"I  know  the  whole  business,"  said  Madam  Brooke. 
"  I  see  exactly  what  you  did  after  you  left  the  Doves' 
with  the  case.  You  cut  over  to  the  South  Station  and 
checked  the  thing,  and  being  there  you  bought  your  ticket, 


210        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

for  fear  you'd  have  to  leave  here  in  a  rush.  And  you 
didn't  mean  to  have  that  chemical  stuff  in  your  possession 
an  instant  till  you  left  town  for  good.  I  don't  know  how 
you  did  it  and  got  back  here  so  quickly,  but  that's  imma 
terial.  Why,  you  took  taxis.  Of  course  you  did."  She 
raised  her  voice.  "  Brooke,  open  the  door." 

He  did  instantly.  It  might  have  been  fancied  that 
his  hand  was  uneasily  upon  the  key. 

"  I  want  you,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  meeting  him  in  the 
doorway,  "  to  take  this  check,  go  to  the  parcel  room  in 
the  South  Station  and  get  the  article  left  there.  And 
bring  it  here  to  me." 

Brooke  took  the  check,  but  he  was  frowning.  Miss 
Bixby,  who  had  approached  the  door,  was  making  appeal 
ing  signs  to  him  behind  his  grandmother's  back.  He  read 
the  sodden  misery  of  the  girl's  face  and  wondered  whether 
he  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  himself  or  even  ashamed  of 
grandmother. 

"  Lieutenant  Harvey,"  Miss  Bixby  broke  out,  in  a  gulp 
of  emotion,  "  that  check  is  mine.  It  represents  property. 
You  have  no  more  right  to  lay  hands  on  it  than  you  have 
to  come  in  here  and  take  things  out  of  my  trunk,  or  than 
she  has  to  snatch  my  purse.  She's  got  my  purse.  There 
it  is  in  her  hand.  Give  me  back  my  property,  Lieutenant 
Harvey." 

He  hesitated,  convinced  now  that  he  was  ashamed  of 
himself  and  aghast  at  the  uncontrollable  force  he  knew  as 
grandmother.  But  grandmother  gave  him  a  little  manda 
tory  push  on  the  arm  and  took  the  key  from  the  door. 

"  Here's  your  purse,"  she  said,  thrusting  it  at  Miss 
Bixby  with  the  other  hand.  "  Do  as  I  tell  you,  Brooke. 
You'll  find  the  thing  checked  at  the  station  is  Mr.  Dove's 
olympium.  If  you  don't,  I'll  go  to  the  Psychopathic  and 
have  my  head  renovated.  Cut  along."  She  shut  the 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        211 

door  on  him,  turned  the  key  and  faced  Miss  Bixby  with 
a  cheerful  smile.  "  Now,"  said  she,  "  let's  sit  down  and 
talk  it  over.  I'm  all  of  a  tremble,  aren't  you?  " 

She  did  sit  down  and  drew  a  footstool  toward  her,  put 
ting  up  her  neat  feet  to  rest  them  comfortably.  Miss 
Bixby  glared  at  the  feet  an  instant  as  if  she  were  cursing 
them.  In  a  sense  she  was,  for  she  was  remembering  the 
stout  calf  boots  at  the  bottom  of  the  trunk  laid  there  sym 
metrically  by  these  delicate  old  hands  that  were  now 
clasped,  yet  trembling  a  little,  in  Madam  Brooke's  violet 
silk  lap.  There  was  some  satisfaction  to  Miss  Bixby  in 
making  sure,  by  a  keener  glance,  that  they  did  tremble. 
At  least,  even  if  this  terrible  old  lady  was  on  top,  she  had 
not  got  there  without  some  wear  and  tear  of  her  precious 
old  self.  Miss  Bixby  felt  as  if  she  must  burst  with  the 
disordered  force  of  her  own  emotions.  Yet  she  could  not 
cry.  She  had  cried  herself  out,  and  it  had  been  so  an 
guished  an  experience  that  she  knew  she  must  guard  her 
self  desperately  against  ever  doing  it  again.  She  decided 
that  no  satiric  gibe  or  cool  command  of  the  old  lady  should 
induce  her  to  speak,  so  long  as  they  remained  together  in 
this  room;  but  her  lips  opened,  without  her  volition,  and 
she  heard  herself  saying,  in  a  passionate  monotone: 

"  It  isn't  fair.    It  isn't  fair." 

And  the  exasperating  old  lady  understood.  She  had 
followed  Miss  Bixby's  glance  from  her  daintily  shod  feet 
to  the  cognisance  of  those  stout  shoes  in  the  trunk,  an  un 
erring  trail.  And  she  said  softly: 

"  Why,  the  shoes  are  nice,  you  know.  You  could  have 
slippers,  too,  if  you  wanted  them." 

Perhaps  her  uncanny  understanding  enraged  Miss 
Bixby  more  than  the  matter  at  issue. 

"No,  I  couldn't  either,"  she  said  violently.  "You 
know  I  couldn't.  Where  could  I  wear  'em?  I'm  on  call 


212        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

every  minute  of  the  day,  indoors  and  then  out.  You 
know  I  am.  And  I've  got  to  lay  by  something,  haven't 
I?  and  there's  my  insurance,  too." 

"  Dear  me!  dear  me!  "  said  the  old  lady.  "  Is  every 
body  underpaid?  Is  that  it?  You're  underpaid?  " 

"  No,  I'm  not,"  said  Miss  Bixby  belligerently.  "  I'm 
overpaid,  if  anything.  But  when  you're  in  business  you 
work  every  minute,  if  there's  anything  to  you.  You  don't 
have  to,  but  you  do,  you  know.  And  there's  no  time  left 
for  slippers  and  things.  I  should  think  you  could  un 
derstand  that." 

"  I  thought,"  said  Madam  Brooke  mildly,  "  that  all 
young  women  nowadays  had  rather  nice  clothes.  Some 
times  I  wish  they  hadn't.  They  make  me  uneasy.  These 
reformers,  you  know,  the  ones  that  read  papers  in  par 
lors,  they  tell  us  girls  have  got  to  have  frillies  or  they'll 
stop  being  good.  I  don't  believe  it  myself.  I  think  a 
good  girl  would  rather  walk  round  in  gunny-bags,  what 
ever  they  are,  or  die  in  'em.  But  the  talk  does  make  me 
uneasy." 

"  You  needn't  be  uneasy  about  me,"  said  Miss  Bixby 
acridly.  "I'm  good  enough.  Nobody  wants  me  to  be 
anything  else.  But  I  dare  say  I  should  be,  anyway." 

Madam  Brooke  shook  her  head. 

"  No,  my  dear,"  she  said.  "  You're  not  any  too  good, 
—  that  is  if  it  proves  you  did  steal  the  old  professor's 
peroxide,  or  whatever  it  is.  No,  you're  not  conspicuously 
good.  As  Brooke  would  say,  '  not  so  you'd  notice  it.7 
But  now  Brooke  has  gone  to  get  the  stuff  and  we're  so 
cosy  here,  talking  it  over,  why  not  tell  me  about  the  key? 
Not  in  the  least  important,  you  know,  only  I'm  curious 
as  a  cat.  I  suppose  you  did  just  help  yourself  to  it,  out 
of  the  table  drawer?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Miss  Bixby,  "  I  did.    Miss  Dove  was  here 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        213 

and  I  thought  I  might  as  well  step  in  and  get  some  pic 
tures  of  the  room." 

Madam  Brooke  fixed  upon  her  a  gaze  unrelenting  and 
yet  impersonal.  She  had  no  animus  against  Miss  Bixby, 
but  she  did  not  propose  letting  her  off  without  setting 
her  motives  in  as  rigorous  order  as  the  contents  of  the 
trunk. 

"  Then,"  said  she, "  why  didn't  you  go  to  the  door  like  a 
Christian  and  ask?  " 

"  Because,"  Miss  Bixby  answered  indifferently,  "  he'd 
as  good  as  turned  me  out  of  the  house." 

"  Oh !  you'd  some  reason  for  thinking  he  was  away." 

"  No.  I  didn't  think  he  was  away.  But  I  knew  if  I 
walked  in  on  him  I  could  say  I  found  a  key  in  the  lock. 
He  isn't  here  on  this  earth,  anyway.  He's  up  in  the 
clouds." 

Madam  Brooke  felt  she  was  getting  somewhere  now. 
She  liked  this  picking  her  steps  along  a  half  blazed  trail. 

"  And  how,"  she  pursued,  "  did  you  know  the  stuff  was 
in  that  case?  " 

Miss  Bixby  smiled  a  little.  This  was  a  fact  not  likely 
to  be  so  palatable,  and  she  delivered  it  with  a  demure  rel 
ish  of  her  own. 

"  Mrs.  Harvey  told  me." 

It  found  its  mark.  Madam  Brooke,  palpably  hit,  re 
peated  doubtfully: 

"  Mrs.  Harvey  told  you?  " 

"  Yes.  She  got  it  from  Miss  Dove.  Don't  you  remem 
ber  that  first  day  Miss  Dove  came  here  and  talked? 
She'd  have  been  surprised  at  the  number  of  things  she  told. 
Well,  that  was  one  of  them." 

"  But  Mrs.  Harvey  —  "  Madam  Brooke  began,  with 
gravity,  and  then  stopped. 

Actually,  there  was  no  limit,  she  was  aware,  to  what 


214        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

Isabel  might,  in  these  interplanetary  relations  of  hers, 
have  innocently  disclosed. 

"  Oh,  she  didn't  actually  tell  me,"  responded  Miss 
Bixby,  impatiently  willing  to  give  Mrs.  Harvey  her  due. 
"  I  was  writing  and  she  asked  questions  about  it,  asked 
to  have  it  confirmed.  Uncle  Edgar,  you  know,  Aunt  Clar 
issa.  She  asked  them." 

"  In  short,  she  asked  you,"  said  Madam  Brooke  sternly, 
"  you  and  your  wall  paper.  Well !  what  did  you  say?  " 

"  What  did  they  say?  "  amended  Miss  Bixby,  as  airily 
as  she  could  manage.  "  Oh,  they  confirmed  it." 

Madam  Brooke  sat  and  stared  at  her  and  Miss  Bixby 
smiled  and  wished  she  could  assume  an  air  of  engaging 
carelessness  by  humming  a  little  song.  But  that  wasn't 
possible.  She  couldn't  even  hum. 

"  And  the  key,"  Madam  Brooke  suggested.  She  spoke 
doubtfully  and  with  some  slight  hesitation.  She  was  be 
ginning,  Miss  Bixby  hoped,  to  find  a  flaw  or  two  in  her 
own  cleverness.  "  What  did  you  do  with  the  key?  " 

"  Now  what,"  said  Miss  Bixby,  amiably  suggesting 
another  flaw,  "  should  you  do  with  something  you'd  helped 
yourself  to,  to  use  for  a  certain  purpose?  If  you'd  used 
it  and  didn't  expect  to  have  any  further  use  for  it  and 
didn't  propose  being  found  out,  you'd  put  it  back  in  the 
place  you  took  it  from.  The  key's  down  there  in  the  table 
drawer." 

But  if  she  expected  Madam  Brooke  to  waste  one  sigh 
over  her  own  reverses  when  the  breath  of  it  might  be 
used  to  acclaim  another's  prowess,  she  didn't  know  her 
old  lady.  Madam  Brooke  smiled  a  little,  then  more  and 
more.  She  even  seemed  to  be  proffering  Miss  Bixby  an 
unbiased  admiration. 

"  Dear  me !  dear  me !  "  she  said,  "  how  much  more  in 
teresting  life  is  than  circulating  libraries.  Well,  now,  Miss 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        215 

Bixby,  you've  been  so  frank  about  it  —  admirable,  I 
call  it  —  do  just  tell  me  what  you  wanted  the  stuff  for. 
Because  you  thought  it's  worth  money?  " 

"  No,"  said  Miss  Bixby  sulkily,  as  if,  things  being  at 
their  worst  with  her,  she  might  as  well  claim  the  dreary 
satisfaction  of  even  unavailing  truth,  "  not  altogether." 

"  Ah,"  said  the  old  lady  astutely,  "  then  you  admit  you 
did  steal  it.  Now  what  for?  " 

Miss  Bixby,  lowering,  stared  at  her. 

"  You  never'd  understand,"  she  said,  "  never  in  the 
world." 

"  Try  me,"  said  Madam  Brooke  hopefully.  "  I  under 
stand  about  most  things.  Sometimes  I  understand  too 
much.  That  was  where  I  came  in  on  your  automatic 
writing.  Mrs.  Harvey  didn't  smell  out  the  hocus-pocus 
in  it.  I  did." 

"  I  know  what  you  thought,"  said  Miss  Bixby.  "  You 
thought  I  faked  it." 

"  Well,"  said  the  old  lady,  "  I'll  give  you  the  very 
slight  benefit  of  the  smallest  doubt.  Some  of  it  you  did 
fake,  for  I  caught  you." 

"  How  did  you  catch  me?  " 

"  Never  mind.  I  did.  On  the  other  hand,  you  may  be 
playing  the  devil's  game  and  think  you're  doing  God  serv 
ice.  I  don't  know.  I  only  know  it's  a  disorderly,  mis 
leading,  bedeviling  sort  of  thing,  and  if  you're  an  honest 
girl  —  only  half  honest  —  you'd  better  get  out  of  it." 

"  Madam  Brooke,"  said  the  girl,  in  such  earnest  that 
she  was  breathless  over  it,  "  how  do  you  suppose  I  can  sit 
down  and  write  things  I  never  heard  about  in  my  life  and 
the  pencil  carrying  my  hand  along  with  it  —  driving  it  — 
and  not  my  hand  moving  the  pencil?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  the  old  lady  honestly,  adding,  with 
a  memory  of  Brooke,  "  Search  me." 


216        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

"  And  don't  you  think,"  the  girl  went  on,  still  in  impas 
sioned  earnest,  "  if  we  find  out  that's  so,  we're  in  honor 
bound  to  keep  on  and  follow  out  the  thing  wherever  it 
leads  us  —  and  see  where  it  does  lead  us?  " 

"  No,  I  don't,"  said  Madam  Brooke.  "  That  I'm  sure 
of.  You're  only  going  to  debase  your  energies  and  weaken 
your  will,  forever  questioning,  forever  whining  for  sym 
pathy  and  asking  advice,  setting  up  a  higher  tribunal 
'  over  there/  as  you  call  it,  and  lying  down  on  what  you 
think  are  higher  intelligences  than  your  own.  No,  my 
girl,  you  fight  it  out  on  this  line.  Make  your  decisions, 
meet  your  griefs,  and  toughen  your  will.  That's  what  the 
whole  business  here  is  for  —  the  mystery,  the  despair  — 
to  make  a  man  of  you  and  toughen  your  will." 

Madam  Brooke  heard  herself  saying  these  things  in  a 
wondering  surprise.  She  hadn't  known  she  possessed  any 
formulated  philosophy,  any  more  than  a  formulated  reli 
gion,  but  now  she  caught  her  breath  a  little  at  the  vision 
before  her,  that  vision  which  comes  to  man  or  woman  at 
least  once  in  a  doubting  life,  of  the  splendor  of  the  quest 
here  in  our  darkness,  the  "  ignorant  armies  "  of  the  mind 
and  soul  clashing  against  evil,  to  attain  at  last  that  un 
seen  glory  —  the  freedom  of  the  will.  But  she  had  not 
revealed  her  vision  to  Miss  Bixby. 

"  Why,"  said  the  girl,  "  don't  you  know  what  we're  in 
it  for,  all  of  us  that  are  in  it  honestly  —  this  psychic 
business?  It  isn't  only  because  we've  lost  friends  and 
want  to  hear  from  'em.  It's  because  it's  —  life." 

"  What  is  life?  "  asked  Madam  Brooke. 

"  It's  life  that  drives  us  crazy.  Why,  Madam  Brooke, 
there's  nothing  to  it." 

"  Nothing  to  it?  "  repeated  the  old  lady,  remembering 
the  unnumbered  leaves  in  the  book  of  years  from  time 
imimagined  to  the  present  hour,  hearing  the  winds  of 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        217 

destiny  stirring  the  torn  and  gorgeous  tapestries  of  the 
world.  "  Nothing  to  life?  " 

"  There's  nothing  to  it,"  repeated  Miss  Bixby  obsti 
nately.  "  There  may  be  for  you.  You  may  make  your 
self  think  there  is.  Your  slippers  and  your  silks,  going 
to  the  symphonies  and  reading  Dante,  that  may  carry 
you  along.  But  when  you  wake  up  at  three  in  the  morn 
ing  and  your  feet  are  cold,  don't  you  know  there's  nothing 
to  it  then?  " 

"  How  the  dickens,"  said  the  old  lady,  startled,  as  if 
she'd  been  caught  by  conjuring,  "  do  you  know  how  I  feel 
when  my  feet  are  cold?  " 

"  Because  I  feel  just  the  same,"  said  Miss  Bixby.  "  It's 
then  I  think  about  life,  and  I  can't  help  it.  And  I  know 
it's  because  my  feet  are  cold,  but  somehow  that  seems  a 
part  of  the  whole  business,  making  'em  cold,  that  awful 
time  in  the  morning,  so  the  beasts  can  get  me  and  I  can't 
fight  'em  off.  And  I  lie  there  and  say  to  myself,  '  This 
is  life,  is  it?  Well,  there's  nothing  to  it.'  " 

"  And  then  you  turn  over  and  get  warm,"  said  the  old 
lady,  fascinated,  "  and  snuggle  a  little  shawl  into  bed  — 
the  one  I  packed  just  now  is  a  nice  one  for  that  —  and  you 
drop  off  and  wake  at  seven  and  you  say, '  Well,  life  isn't 
such  a  bad  old  party  after  all ! ' " 

"  Yes.  And  maybe  there  are  popovers  for  breakfast," 
said  Miss  Bixby,  at  once  feeling  she  had  betrayed  herself 
and  looking  foolish. 

Madam  Brooke  gazed  at  her  in  a  consuming  sympathy. 
Popovers !  this  volcanic  person  with  a  crust  of  ice  could  be 
reconciled  to  the  mysterious  gods,  for  a  fleeting  hour  in 
the  morning,  by  popovers.  She  broke  into  a  laugh,  and 
Miss  Bixby,  whose  mind  may  have  followed  hers  through 
that  satiric  commentary,  laughed  also,  though  grimly. 

"  Now,"  said  the  old  lady,  "  just  what  do  you  find  in 


218        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

your  psychic  business?  What  do  you  think  it's  going  to 
do  for  you?  " 

"  Why/'  said  Miss  Bixby,  now  in  an  absolute  agony  of 
wanting  to  make  herself  understood,  "  it's  what  you  said 
yourself.  It's  the  tribunal.  It's  knowing  there's  some 
where  where  the  accounts  are  kept  and  things  are  justified 
and  the  reasons  known.  It  isn't  leaving  these  awful 
loose  ends  flying.  They're  gathered  up.  They're  knit 
into  a  web." 

Madam  Brooke,  looking  at  her,  shrewdly  suspected  she 
wanted  the  universe  reduced  to  a  system  of  obvious  order 
conformable  to  her  own  exactness  with  the  tools  of  her 
trade. 

"And  there's  the  animals,"  said  Miss  Bixby,  sitting 
still,  though,  in  some  undesigned  way,  giving  an  impres 
sion  of  mentally  writhing  in  these  agonies  she  disclosed. 
"  There's  got  to  be  something  to  account  for  them.  Why, 
don't  you  know  how  they  suffer?  They  suffer  all  the 
time." 

"There's  the  Society,"  said  Madam  Brooke  weakly, 
knowing  this  was  no  answer  and  yet  proffering  it  as  the 
only  palliative  at  hand. 

"  It  isn't  that,"  said  Miss  Bixby  scornfully.  She  seemed 
to  be  repudiating  the  mere  parochial  system  of  seeing  an 
imals  through  their  pain,  and  sweeping  out  into  the  waste 
places  of  the  world  on  wings  of  wrathful  questioning. 
"  Why,  it  isn't  only  we  that  abuse  'em.  They  hunt  each 
other  and  crunch  each  other's  bones  and  suck  each  other's 
blood,  and  there  isn't  one  of  'em  that  isn't  afraid  —  mor 
tally  afraid  —  of  something  else.  What's  your  tribunal 
going  to  say  about  that?  If  it's  got  anything  to  say  I 
want  to  hear  it,  and  if  automatic  writing'll  tell  me  so 
much  as  one  word  —  a  word  here  and  a  word  there  that  I 
can  piece  together  into  something  that  means  something 
—  well,  I  want  it,  that's  all." 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        219 

Madam  Brooke  sought  about  in  her  mind  for  those  as 
suagements  she  had  herself  often  dismissed  as  platitudes 
but  which,  it  seemed  to  her  now,  had  their  uses. 

"  Of  course,"  said  she, "  it  isn't  possible  for  us  to  under 
stand.  We  must  believe.  They  tell  us  so.  They  tell 
us  we  must  have  faith." 

"  Yes,"  said  Miss  Bixby,  dismissing  faith  with  the 
monosyllable, "  but  faith  isn't  anything.  It's  a  lazy  man's 
religion,  that's  all.  You  don't  know,  so  you  give  it  up. 
It's  just  exactly  as  if  you  were  doing  arithmetic  and  you 
said,  1 1  can't  find  an  answer  to  this,  and  so  I  can't  plan 
the  measurements  of  the  bridge  I've  got  to  design  or  the 
ship  I'm  going  to  build,  but  it's  a  great  deal  more  satis 
factory  than  if  I  could/  Lord!  " 

The  invocation  was  not  irreverent.  It  seemed  to  be  an 
appeal. 

"  Do  you  go  to  church?  "  asked  Madam  Brooke,  in  a 
small  voice. 

"  No,"  said  Miss  Bixby  shortly.  "  My  Sundays  are 
full.  I  mend  my  stockings  and  rest  my  back." 

"  Have  you,"  again  Madam  Brooke  ventured,  "  any 
near  family?  " 

"  I've  got  nobody,"  said  the  girl.  "  They  died  years 
and  years  ago,  and  they  might  have  died  sooner  for  all 
I'm  concerned.  All  but  mother;  but  she  died  before  I'd 
begun  to  earn,  so  I  could  give  her  things.  And  now  you'll 
say,  '  Well,  if  you  fell  in  love  you'd  feel  differently.  Or 
if  you'd  married,  and  had  children  you'd  feel  differently/ 
No,  I  shouldn't.  I  should  only  feel  more  so.  Suppose  I 
fell  in  love,  suppose  somebody  fell  in  love  with  me.  Not 
likely,  but  suppose  it,  just  for  fun."  It  was  a  bleak  word 
to  use  at  that  point,  and  she  used  it  bleakly.  No  one 
could  imagine  her  doing  anything  for  fun.  "Would  it 
last?  You  know  it  wouldn't.  Madam  Brooke,  there's 


220        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

nothing  to  it.  Suppose  I  had  children  and  thought  they'd 
make  up  to  me  for  my  husband's  forgetting  he'd  been  in 
love  with  me.  Would  that  last?  No!  if  we  were  poor, 
they'd  want  to  get  rid  of  me  as  soon  as  I  was  helpless  and 
old.  If  we  were  rich  "  —  She  remembered  there  that 
Madam  Brooke  herself  was  old,  and  qualified  it  —  "  Well, 
if  you're  rich,  you  can  manage  to  play  the  game.  But 
there's  nothing  to  it." 

Madam  Brooke  sat  looking  at  her  and  thinking  so  hard 
it  made  her  tired  head  ache.  The  smooth  surface  of  the 
girl's  face  was  broken  up  and  seamed  by  the  fighting 
forces  within.  Her  black  eyes  burned.  She  was  one  fire 
of  need  and  hunger  from  top  to  toe. 

"How  much  did  you  ever  get  out  of  the  things  you 
thought  you  wanted  so  you'd  sell  your  soul  for  them?  " 
she  was  asking  fiercely.  "  Nothing,  in  the  end.  You 
know  you  didn't.  Nobody  ever  does,  only  they  haven't 
always  the  sense  to  see  it  or  the  courage  to  own  up. 
There's  nothing  to  it,  I  tell  you,  nothing." 

"  So  you  don't  believe,"  the  old  lady  ventured,  "  there's 
anything  splendid  in  fighting  here  in  the  dark  for  the 
sake  of  what  seems  to  you  good,  though  you  don't  know 
what  it  is  nor  exactly  why  you  think  it's  good?  You 
don't  think  there's  anything  fine  in  crawling  along  over 
the  stony  roadway,  trying  to  smooth  it  out  a  little  with 
your  bare  hands  so  somebody  else  will  find  it  easier?  " 

"  I  don't  know  whether  it's  fine  or  not,"  said  Miss 
Bixby.  "  I  know  it's  heart-breaking.  It's  a  mean  game 
they're  playing  with  us,  they  knowing  all  the  cards  and  we 
putting  'em  down  any  old  way  because  we  haven't  been 
told  what's  trumps." 

"  Oh  yes,  we  have,"  said  Madam  Brooke.  "  We  do 
know  what's  trumps." 

"  Well,  in  a  Poor  Richard  sort  of  way,  I  suppose  we  do, 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        221 

—  B.  Franklin, '  honesty  is  the  best  policy  '  and  all  that. 
But  to  know,  really  to  know!  just  you  think  of  that.  To 
put  up  with  this  hole  of  an  earth  because  we  know  there's 
another  one,  all  —  " 

She  hesitated  and  Madam  Brooke  supplied,  smiling  a 
little: 

"  Gold  streets  and  golden  slippers." 

"  I  believe  in  bookkeeping  myself,"  said  Miss  Bixby, 
so  emphatically  that  she  seemed  to  be  reciting  her  earthly 
creed  and  closing  the  covers  with  a  bang.  "  I  believe 
there's  got  to  be  something  to  explain  this,  or  it's  going  to 
keep  on  making  us  sick,  every  child  that's  born  into  it, 
till  the  end  of  time.  And  wouldn't  that  be  a  mean  trick 
to  play  on  us?  "  she  asked  frankly,  with  no  shade  of 
humor.  "  Shut  us  up  here  and  forbid  us  to  peek  and 
keep  generation  after  generation  of  us  finding  out  there's 
nothing  to  it." 

"  Miss  Bixby,"  said  Madam  Brooke  frankly,  "  I  wish 
you  and  I  had  got  acquainted  before.  Why  didn't  you 
ever  talk." 

"  I  wasn't  hired  to  talk,"  said  Miss  Bixby  coldly.  "  I 
did  my  work.  You  do,  you  know." 

"  But  now,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  if  my  grandson 
comes  back  with  the  elixir  of  life,  or  whatever  it  is,  and 
we  hand  it  over  to  the  owner  —  and  no  questions  asked  — 
and  you  oblige  Mr.  Harvey  by  giving  up  the  automatic 
writing  —  it  upsets  my  daughter  very  much,  you  know  — 
don't  you  think  you  could  stay  on  and  try  to  find  some 
thing  a  little  more  satisfactory  with  us  than  you  have 
yet?  " 

Miss  Bixby  stared  at  her. 

"  Give  up  automatic  writing?  "  she  repeated.  "  Why, 
that's  what  I'm  going  to  New  York  for.  It  wasn't  only 
to  run  off  with  the  camera  case,  though  that  did  start  me 


222        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

off  to-day.  I'm  going  to  launch  out.  I'm  going  to  open 
an  office  and  give  sittings  and  write  myself  blind  and  crazy 
but  what  I'll  find  out  what  there  is  to  it." 

"That's  what  you'll  do,"  said  Madam  Brooke. 
"  You'll  addle  your  brains  and  weaken  your  will  and 
you'll  get  that  look  they  all  have  —  that  sly,  superior  sort 
of  smile  that  says  they  don't  care  how  soon  this  old  planet 
goes  to  pieces  so  long  as  they're  in  on  the  ground  floor  of 
another  one." 

The  girl  rose  from  her  chair.  She  had  ordinarily  no 
personal  presence,  but  now  Madam  Brooke  was  surprised 
to  see  how  tall  she  looked. 

"I  tell  you,"  she  said,  "I  don't  care  that"  — she 
snapped  her  wiry  fingers  into  the  air  —  "  what  happens 
to  me.  I'm  as  much  of  an  adventurer  as  the  men  that 
sailed  out  discovering  continents,  two  or  three  hundred 
years  ago.  They  didn't  care  that  either."  And  again  she 
snapped  the  capable  fingers.  "  And  they  weren't  afraid 
of  being  roasted  by  cannibals  or  drowned  in  the  sea. 
Why,  what's  discontent,  the  eating  kind  of  discontent  that 
made  them  start  out  and  throw  their  lives  overboard  when 
they  had  to?  They  knew  there  was  nothing  to  it.  That's 
what  discontent  is.  And  they  were  trying  to  find  the 
other  end  of  things,  same  as  I  am  and  that  old  Mr.  Dove. 
He's  trying,  too.  Only  what  we're  doing  is  to  find  the  end 
that's  snarled  up  off  there  round  Orion  or  the  Milky  Way 
and  it's  an  awful  long  ways  off." 

"  My  Lord !  "  said  Madam  Brooke,  staring  at  her. 
"My  Lord  above!" 

The  fire  in  the  girl's  face  died  as  suddenly  as  if  a  wind 
had  puffed  it  out.  Her  body  relaxed  into  a  dispirited 
lassitude. 

"There's  Lieutenant  Harvey,"  she  said  indifferently. 
"  He's  just  come  in.  You'd  better  go  down  and  meet  him 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        223 

and  start  him  off  to  Mr.  Dove  with  the  stolen  goods. 
IVe  got  to  finish  packing.  If  I  don't  look  out,  I  sha'n't 
be  off  to-night." 

Madam  Brooke  rose  and  went  to  the  door,  unlocked  it 
and  stood  there  waiting.  Brooke  came  up  in  a  hurry  and 
he  carried  the  case. 

"  I  suppose,"  he  said  "  this  is  all  right.  It  has  Mr. 
Dove's  name  on  the  bottom  and  a  New  York  address." 

"  Yes,"  said  Miss  Bixby.  The  exchange  was  as  com 
monplace  as  if  nothing  emotional  had  ever  blown  through 
the  quiet  room.  "  It's  quite  all  right.  You'd  better  take 
it  down  to  them  at  once.  I  suppose  they're  worried." 

Brooke  looked  at  his  grandmother  and  she  nodded  her 
assent,  at  which  he  hurried  off,  his  mind  full  of  Andrea. 
Presently  they  heard  the  door  close  below.  Miss  Bixby 
was  stirring  about  the  room  with  her  capable,  deft  move 
ments  picking  up  smaller  articles  and  putting  them  in  the 
tray  of  her  trunk.  Madam  Brooke  turned  to  her,  was 
about  to  speak  and  waited.  It  was  evident  that  Miss 
Bixby,  smiling  rather  satirically,  was  also  about  to 
speak. 

"  Didn't  I  tell  you,"  she  said  composedly,  meeting 
Madam  Brooke's  glance,  "  there's  nothing  to  it?  There's 
nothing  to  anything  on  this  beastly  earth.  Now  this  — 
here  I  thought  I'd  got  my  hands  on  something  that  would 
move.  I  knew  that  old  man  hadn't  enough  life  left  in 
him  for  anything  but  muddling  away  the  thing,  even  if 
there's  anything  to  it.  I  knew  I  could  find  a  way  to  get 
it  looked  into  by  the  right  kind  of  man.  And  here  you 
take  it  away  from  me,  back  to  him,  and  he'll  sit  and  stare 
at  it  till  he  drops  into  his  grave.  And  what'll  become  of 
it  then?  The  girl  will  marry  and  her  children  will  want 
the  case  to  play  with  and  pour  the  stuff  out  into  the  back 
yard.  There's  nothing  to  it,  I  tell  you  — life.  Or  if 


224        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

there  is,  they've  sworn  to  keep  their  secret.  They're 
bound  we  sha'n't  know." 

The  bitterness  of  this  was  so  poignant  that  Madam 
Brooke  could  not  answer  even  with  the  last  poor  palliative 
on  her  lips.  She  turned  and  went  gravely  away  to  her 
own  room  on  the  floor  below.  But  Miss  Bixby  had  not 
finished  packing  when  she  was  back  again.  She  came 
slowly,  for  she  was  tired,  and  she  bore  in  both  hands,  as 
if  it  were  a  precious  offering  to  be  carried  ceremoniously, 
an  oblong  package  done  up  in  soft  white  paper. 

"  You  look  here,  my  dear,"  she  said,  dropping  into  a 
chair  and  resting  the  parcel  on  her  knees.  "  I  bought 
this  for  Beatrice  Hayden,  about  the  beginning  of  the  war. 
They'd  just  imported  it.  And  then  the  war  began  and 
Phil  went  off  and  Bee  hadn't  any  heart  for  clothes.  And 
I  thought  I'd  keep  it  till  she  began  to  live  again.  The 
young  do,  you  know.  They  must.  But  now  I  want  to 
give  it  to  you." 

She  lifted  the  folds  of  paper,  and  Miss  Bixby  drew  a 
quick  breath  at  the  beauty  of  the  fabric  gleaming  up  at 
them,  gold  in  hue  and  of  a  texture  almost  impalpable 
where  it  was  not  crusted  by  the  rich  embroidery  of  flowers 
and  leaves.  It  was  queens'  covering  in  the  days  when 
queens  were  what  they  can  never  be  again. 

"  What  could  I  do  with  it?  "  asked  Miss  Bixby,  in  a  tone 
of  sad  wonder  that  anybody  could  think  of  its  pertaining 
in  any  propriety  to  her.  "  Where  could  I  wear  it?  " 

"  You  could  wear  it  in  your  room,"  said  Madam  Brooke 
hopefully.  "  It  would  be  something  to  build  up  from. 
You  must  have  more  pleasures,  my  dear,  more  of  the 
things  that  take  our  minds  off  the  bad  things  in  the  world. 
They  do  keep  their  secrets,  the  Ones  that  arranged  the 
world.  I  know  that,  just  as  well  as  you  do.  I  don't 
know  that  I  blame  Them.  They  must  have  their  reasons. 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        225 

But  you  can't  dwell  on  it.  If  we  dwell  on  it,  we  get  queer. 
Buy  you  a  flower  to  smell,  or  hear  some  music,  or  wear  a 
pretty  frock.  When  I  look  at  some  of  those  things 
They've  given  us,  I  find  I  can  believe  They're  not  so  un 
friendly  to  us,  after  all.  Now  I'm  going  to  put  this  in  the 
top  of  your  trunk.  You  hang  it  on  a  chair  in  the  sun 
and  see  how  it  makes  you  feel."  She  got  up,  laid  the 
package  in  the  tray,  and  gave  it  a  little  affectionate  pat 
of  loving  farewell.  Then  she  held  out  her  hand.  "I'm 
going  to  lie  down  awhile,"  she  said.  "  Perhaps  I  sha'n't 
see  you  again." 

Miss  Bixby  took  the  fragile  hand  that  had  yet  such 
strength  of  will  in  it,  and  involuntarily  bent  her  head  a 
little  over  it.  It  looked  as  if  she  wanted  to  kiss  it.  She 
did  want  to,  but  she  simply  couldn't  do  it.  The  ice  of 
habit  had  begun  to  form  again  about  her  heart. 

But  Madam  Brooke  did  not  rest  for  any  space  of  time. 
She  was  lying  on  her  bed,  hands  folded,  her  tired  body 
inert,  when  Brooke  knocked  and,  when  she  bade  him, 
came  in  and  shut  the  door  behind  him.  He  still  carried 
the  case  and  he  looked  worried. 

"  See  here,"  said  he,  "  what  am  I  going  to  do  with  it? 
I've  knocked  and  knocked  at  her  door  and  nobody  an 
swers." 

"  Keep  it  till  morning  then,"  she  said, "  unless  you  think 
it'll  be  too  much  of  a  strain  for  her  to  wait." 

"  Oh,  she'll  know,"  said  Brooke,  "  when  she  comes  home. 
I  tucked  a  card  under  the  door  and  told  her  it  was  found." 

"  Open  it,  dear,"  said  Madam  Brooke.  She  called  on 
her  patient  inner  forces  for  one  thrill  more.  "  I  want  to 
see  how  the  thing  looks." 

"  I  can't,"  said  Brooke.    "  It's  locked." 


XXI 

THE  next  step  before  Andrea  was  into  the  brambly 
thicket  of  the  tortured  truth.  Yet  she  took  it  without 
hesitating  as  she  would  have  taken  a  bigger  leap  into  more 
dubious  ground  to  serve  her  father.  He  must,  at  all  costs, 
at  least  until  she  heard  from  Brooke,  be  spared  the  shock 
of  finding  out  about  Miss  Bixby  and  the  olympium. 
When  he  came  home,  he  would  go  at  once  into  the  labor 
atory,  and  his  first  glance  would  be  for  the  case  on  the 
table.  She  must  be  away,  out  of  reach  of  questioning. 
He  had  told  her  to  look  for  rooms  at  the  West  End.  That 
would  account  for  her.  She  set  out  bread  and  fruit  —  the 
only  food  she  could  persuade  him  now  to  touch  —  and  left 
a  written  message  for  him  in  his  room.  She  had  gone  out, 
she  told  him,  and  it  seemed  to  her  safer  to  take  the  olym 
pium  with  her.  It  was,  she  reminded  him,  what  they  used 
to  do.  Andrea  smiled  a  little,  as  she  read  over  the  mes 
sage,  a  least  little  smile  that  had  no  mirth  in  it,  remember 
ing,  but  without  emotion,  the  straight  lines  of  her  old  in 
tegrity.  Once  the  truth  meant  naked  fact.  It  still  did, 
for  others  more  heroic  than  she  who  had  built  their  houses 
on  that  rock  where,  however  the  winds  beat  and  the  floods 
come,  they  fall  not.  But,  as  it  seemed  to  her  now,  when 
you  rest  the  tottering  pillars  of  your  house  upon  a  lie,  it 
is  a  small  matter  if  you  top  it  with  a  disorderly  brick  the 
more.  You  build  as  you  can,  propping  the  shameful  pile 
where  you  must,  in  the  terrified  hope  of  its  lasting  briefly, 

226 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        227 

but  aware  that,  in  the  end,  foredoomed,  it  falls.  And  she 
had  seen  enough  of  Nemesis  to  believe  that,  when  it  does 
topple  to  its  ruin,  with  a  savage  honesty  inherent  in  even 
the  false  work  of  man  it  traps  and  crushes  him  who  built 
it.  But  that  was  beside  the  purpose.  She  had  done  her 
deed  and  she  was  ready  for  her  punishment.  She  went 
out  and  up  the  street  the  way  Brooke  would  come  if  he 
had  news  for  her,  walked  past  the  Harveys  to  the  block 
above  and  paced  up  and  down,  keeping  watch  of  their 
door  and  the  car  before  it.  Finally,  when  her  tired  mind 
fell  into  doubt  and  told  her  she  had  somehow  missed  him, 
Brooke  ran  out,  got  into  the  car  and  drove  away.  She 
followed  and  saw  it  turn  to  the  right  at  Arlington  Street, 
not  to  the  left,  as  if  he  were  going  to  her.  Dispirited,  she 
walked  back  to  a  corner  within  sight  of  her  own  house, 
lingered  there  a  little  and,  with  a  perfunctory  design  of 
accounting  to  her  father  for  her  absence,  wandered  about 
the  West  End  for  an  hour,  looking  for  rooms.  Her  mind 
was  no  longer  keen;  she  could  not  even  set  it  to  work  at 
guessing  what  might  happen.  It  was  too  dull  and  stiff 
ened.  The  sight  of  Brooke  whirling  away  from  her  had 
looked  final ;  it  did  not  seem  likely  that  he  would  return. 
She  had  her  luncheon  and  wandered  about  again.  With 
the  early  dusk  she  was  suddenly  tired  all  over,  not  her 
mind  only  but  her  whole  body,  and  then  she  did  go  home 
and  found  his  card  with  the  message  saying  the  case  was 
found.  That  was  good,  she  thought,  that  was  temporary 
comfort,  though  she  would  have  to  explain  it  all  to  her 
father;  and  how  that  was  to  be  done,  with  her  mind  so 
tired,  she  could  not  see.  But  he  had  not  come  yet,  and 
she  got  something  to  eat  and  arranged  a  tray  for  him,  hop 
ing  he  would  lie  down  and  let  her  bring  it  to  him.  And 
as  the  dusk  deepened  and  she  began  to  find,  with  the 
strength  food  gave  her,  that  she  was  strong  enough  to 


228        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS  ; 

balance  possibilities  of  accident  and  yet  not  strong  enough 
to  fight  them  off,  he  came.  He  was  tired,  more  tired  even 
than  she  had  expected.  He  carried  the  little  box,  and  he 
seemed  in  excellent  spirits.  He  gave  her  a  nod  but  no 
word,  and  went  on,  as  she  expected,  into  the  laboratory, 
and  at  once  she  heard  him  laugh.  Had  he  seen  the  case 
was  gone?  He  must  have,  at  the  instant  of  entering. 
The  light  from  the  street  lamp  was  enough  to  show  up 
every  corner.  She  crept  nearer  the  door  and  listened, 
and  still  he  laughed,  snatches  of  low  amused  laughter,  and 
hummed  a  little  in  the  intervals  between. 

"  Andrea !  "  he  called,  and  now  she  knew  he  would  tell 
her  and  she  must  explain  to  him  all  that  had  happened 
and  that  the  case  was  safe  with  Brooke.  She  braced  her 
self  for  it,  but  he  called  again,  lightly,  pleasantly,  as  she 
hardly  remembered  he  could  speak: 

"  I'll  have  a  bite  of  supper  now." 

That  was  reprieve  for  her  and  she  was  glad.  She  had 
it  ready  shortly,  and  he  came  out  and  sat  down  to  it.  He 
was  eating  with  determination,  not  as  if  the  food  ap 
pealed  to  him  but  knowing  he  must  hearten  himself,  and 
she  wondered  if  everything  was  going  to  frighten  her  now: 
for  it  did  frighten  her  to  guess  what  he  might  be  hearten 
ing  himself  for.  When  he  had  finished,  he  sat  a  moment 
looking  down  at  his  plate  and  her  pulse  answered  with  a 
leap  of  fear.  He  was  going,  she  knew,  to  tell  her  some 
thing  for  which  she  was  not  prepared.  He  looked  up  at 
her,  and  she  shrank  a  little  before  the  amused,  satiric 
gleam  in  his  black  eyes. 

"  So,"  he  said,  "  they've  got  it,  haven't  they,  just  as  I 
thought  they  would?  " 

"  Who?  "  she  managed  to  ask. 

"  The  woman  that  came  here,  the  one  that  told  me  it 
was  worth  thousands  of  dollars.  Or  Peter  Harvey.  He's 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        229 

probably  sitting  there  in  his  library  planning  the  pro 
spectus  for  his  syndicate,  so  they  can  exploit  it  as  soon 
as  I'm  dead.  He'll  keep  it  hidden  till  then." 

"  But  daddy,"  she  said,  as  she  had  said  to  him  before, 
"  you  believed  in  Peter  Harvey." 

"  He's  an  honest  man,"  he  owned,  with  an  air  of  magnif 
icent  concession, "  as  men  go.  But  he  believes  in  business 
as  I  believe  in  another  world.  Do  you  suppose  he  could 
resist  a  brilliant  opening  like  that,  when  he  saw  it  before 
him,  any  more  than  I  could  resist  trying  to  make  my  con 
nection  between  this  world  and  the  other?  I  don't  blame 
him.  It's  his  form  of  energy,  just  as  it's  mine  to  bring 
down  fire  from  God.  How  did  he  manage  it?  "  he  ended 
abruptly.  "Do  you  know?  Did  he  come  himself,  or 
did  he  send  the  woman?  " 

She  shrank  from  telling  him  now  while  that  ungoverned 
light  was  playing  in  his  eyes,  because  if  she  did  offer  him 
the  literal  fact  it  would  confirm  his  doubts  of  Peter  Har 
vey. 

"  It's  a  queer  story,"  she  said.  "  But  all  that  matters 
to  us  now  is  that  it's  safe." 

He  laughed,  a  low  reflective  laugh,  as  if  it  wouldn't  be 
possible  for  him  to  tell  or  even  quite  realise  himself  how 
humorous  he  found  life  and  its  harsh  ironies. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  that's  of  the  utmost  importance  for 
us:  to  know  it's  safe." 

She  wished  he  would  tell'her  about  his  day. 

"  Did  you  find  anything?  "  she  asked  him. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  I  found  something." 

He  began  smiling  in  that  way  she  found  so  repellent: 
the  sly  smile  of  narrowed  eyes  and  half  pursed  lips,  the 
facial  commentary  of  the  egoist  who  has  again  vindicated 
his  own  astuteness. 

"  At  the  South  End?  "  she  pursued. 


230        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

"Well!" 

He  seemed  to  be  thinking  it  over,  weighing  what  she  had 
best  be  told. 

"If  it  isn't  the  South  End,  it  is  sufficiently  remote, 
Andrea,  far  enough  away  from  here  for  none  of  them  to 
think  of  it,  not  even  you." 

"  Think  of  what?  "  she  asked. 

But  that  he  did  not  answer. 

"  I  want  you,"  he  said,  "  to  listen  to  me,  listen  with  all 
your  might,  and  memorise  what  I  say,  so  you  never  will 
forget.  For  the  time  is  short." 

"  What  do  you  mean?  "  she  asked,  her  heart  sinking, 
"  by  saying  the  time  is  short?  " 

"  My  time,"  he  said.  "  My  time  is  short.  You  will 
have  to  take  over  my  work." 

"  You  mean,"  she  said,  trying,  with  a  painstaking  in- 
tentness,  to  help  him  clarify  his  turbid  mind  — "  what 
you  said  before  about  watching  with  you,  listening  to 
hear  you  call?  " 

"  Partly,"  he  said.  "  That,  too.  But  let  us  take  it  in 
course.  I  have  had  strange  intuitions  lately.  When  a 
thing  has  happened  I  have  known  it  in  advance.  Wlien 
that  woman  came  here  to  buy  me,  I  knew  she  was  com 
ing.  I  didn't  know  who  it  was  to  be,  but  I  knew  some 
body  was  coming  to  get  my  discovery  away  from  me. 
That  shows  my  soul  has  got  the  better  of  the  body.  It's 
got  outside.  It  isn't  going  to  use  the  body  very  much 
longer." 

"  I'd  rather,"  said  Andrea,  with  a  pitiful  attempt  to  re 
call  him  to  her  own  need  of  him,  "  I'd  rather  have  you  in 
your  body,  even  if  you  didn't  know  so  much." 

"  The  woman  isn't  a  bad  sort,"  he  said,  reflecting.  "  If 
she  hadn't  that  mania  for  writing  she'd  be  a  very  good  sort 
indeed.  She's  as  determined  as  the  devil  —  or  as  I  am. 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        231 

But  we  mustn't  think  we  can  believe  in  her.  We  know 
we  can't.  Dismiss  it.  The  amount  of  it  is,  you've  got 
to  take  the  whole  thing  on  your  shoulders." 

"But,  father,"  she  ventured,  because  it  did  not  seem 
possible  to  let  him  persist  in  building  on  the  weakness  of 
her  ignorance,  "  how  could  I  prove  what  you  haven't 
proved  yourself?  " 

"  I  shall  write  it  out,"  he  said.  "  I  shall  begin  to-night. 
And  I  shall  help  you  from  the  other  end  of  the  line.  Don't 
look  like  that,"  he  cried,  in  a  nervous  gust  of  impatience 
at  an  emotion  so  far  removed  from  his  celestial  casuistry. 
"  I'm  not  going  to  die  now.  They  wouldn't  snatch  me 
away  with  my  work  half  done.  But  we  must  prepare, 
and  when  we've  moved  from  here  and  it's  safe  to  have 
the  olympium  by  us,  you  must  guard  it  as  you'd  guard 
your  life.  And  you  must  look  about  until  you  find  some 
man  to  help  you." 

"  To  help  me,  father?  help  me  what?  " 

It  sickened  her  to  draw  him  on  and  yet  she  knew  it  was 
all  to  be  said  or  she  could  not  quiet  him. 

"  A  scientist,"  he  said,  thinking  it  out  as  he  spoke,  "  a 
man  young,  enthusiastic,  imaginative,  with  an  inventor's 
brain.  Make  him  love  you,  Andrea,  make  him  love  you," 
he  repeated,  with  a  fevered  intensity.  "  You  are  a  beauti 
ful  woman.  I've  been  watching  you  lately,  studying  out 
what  you  could  do." 

"  0  father!  "  she  cried  out,  ashamed. 

"  Make  him  insane  with  wanting  you.  Insanity's  a 
good  thing,  my  girl,  sometimes.  It's  the  only  one  that  will 
do  the  things  that  lie  between  heaven  and  earth  as  this 
does.  Don't  let  him  marry  you,  for  if  you  do  he'll  be 
the  one  to  set  the  pace  and  you  the  one  to  follow.  I  see 
it  in  you.  Your  mother  was,  too.  You're  like  her.  It 
wasn't  till  she  was  snatched  away  from  me  that  I  realised 


232        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

everything  I'd  got  to  do,  to  find  her,  to  tell  her  I  was  sorry 
—  well,  well,  all  that's  long  ago,  long  ago." 

He  sank  into  musing  for  a  moment,  his  head  bent,  his 
face,  as  she  ventured  a  glance  at  it,  darkened  by  remem 
bered  grief. 

"  Men  can't  mourn  forever,"  he  said.  "  My  trying  to 
speak  to  her  grew  into  this  other  thing,  speaking  to  the 
world  where  she  might  be.  At  first  the  man  tries  to  fight 
out  the  way  to  his  own  little  wish,  and  then  he  sees  he's 
been  led  on  through  that  to  doing  the  great  thing,  not  for 
himself  but  all  men."  Then  his  mind  reverted  to  passion 
ate  adjuration.  "  Don't  give  him  power  over  you,  An 
drea.  Keep  your  foot  on  his  neck.  If  you  love  him  bet 
ter  than  your  life,  don't  let  him  know  it  till  he  has  worked 
out  my  problem  as  I  set  it  down  for  him.  Then  do  as 
you  like,"  he  ended  contemptuously,  and  though  she  inev 
itably  shrank,  she  knew  the  contempt  was  not  for  her  but 
for  the  pretensions  of  man  in  a  universe  where  the  atom 
is  but  the  atom  and  the  whole  looms  implacably  large. 
"  Satisfy  your  instincts.  Pay  tribute  before  you  go.  But 
you  will  have  done  your  task  and  what  becomes  of  you 
personally  —  " 

There  he  stopped,  and  she  wondered  if  it  was  because  he 
realised  his  deduction  would  sound  so  monstrous  that  in 
voluntarily,  in  human  kindness  to  her,  he  spared  her  the 
hearing  of  it.  But  he  had  minimised  all  mortal  preten 
sions  until  she  too  felt  small  and  weak. 

"  It  does  make  a  difference  what  becomes  of  me,  daddy," 
she  said,  recalling  him  by  a  touch  on  his  arm.  "  Not  to 
the  other  worlds  you  talk  about.  I  don't  know  about 
them.  But  to  you  —  and  mother,  daddy!  remember 
mother  in  her  blue  dress  —  it  makes  a  difference  to  you." 

He  put  his  hand  over  the  fingers  trembling  on  his  arm. 

"  Yes,  Andrea,  yes,"  he  said  kindly.    But  it  was  a  per- 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        233 

functory  gentleness,  she  despairingly  felt,  a  surface  sym 
pathy  the  reflex  of  her  tone.  "  Of  course  your  mother'd 
care.  She  did  wear  a  blue  dress,"  he  exclaimed,  in  a  sud 
den  burst  of  what  sounded  like  alarm  at  this  rising  of  un- 
considered  trifles  from  the  dead  welter  of  oblivion. 
"  How  did  you  remember  that?  I  hadn't  thought  of  it 
for  years.  My  God !  "  he  muttered  to  himself,  as  if  re 
turning  to  the  garden  of  beauty  which  was  his  youth  and 
the  playtime  of  his  love,  dark  now  under  the  yews  of 
sorrow  and  the  briers  of  forgetfulness.  "  How  can  such 
things  be!" 

He  sat  silent  for  a  moment,  going  back  and  back,  An 
drea  could  see,  and  then  snatching  himself  out  of  the  dark 
garden  in  terror  at  thinking  where  the  paths  might  lead 
him.  He  rose  so  abruptly  that  her  hand  fell  from  his  arm. 

"  Go  to  bed,"  he  said  curtly.  "  You're  dog-tired.  I 
shall  sit  up  and  write."  And  he  went  into  the  laboratory 
and  shut  the  door. 

Then  the  virtue  of  endurance  ran  out  of  her  and  she 
knew  she  was  indeed  dog-tired.  These  were  things  she 
could  not  think  of  any  more  until  her  blurred  brain  was 
again  sentient  to  impressions.  She  could  not  even  suffer 
because  he  loved  the  system  of  worlds  God  had  made  too 
much  to  love  her  whom  he  had  himself  called  into  this 
present  life.  She  could  not  wonder  because  he  seemed  so 
entirely  unmoved  by  the  loss  of  his  olympium  nor  specu 
late  upon  the  meaning  of  that  look  on  his  face  which 
seemed  to  say  he  knew  strange  sequels  to  all  mortal  hap 
penings.  She  got  ready  for  bed  in  a  daze  and  was  more 
than  half  asleep  when  she  lay  down  on  her  couch  there  in 
the  living  room  and  floated  off  into  a  blank  forgetfulness, 
eased  by  gratitude  that  at  least  none  of  these  things  need 
be  thought  of  any  more  to-night. 

After  a  long  night,  as  it  seemed  to  her  at  the  moment, 


234        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

she  awoke,  perhaps  at  a  sound  in  the  room.  Or  it  was 
not  so  much  a  sound  as  the  consciousness  of  a  presence. 
She  raised  herself  on  her  elbow,  her  heart  beating  thickly, 
and  stared  into  the  half  darkness;  but  nothing  moved,  and 
she  lay  there  following  familiar  outlines  and  verifying 
them,  calming  more  and  more.  But  when  her  darting 
glance  sought  to  pierce  the  obscurity  by  the  outer  door, 
she  found  there  a  darker  shadow,  the  figure  of  a  man.  At 
the  little  sound  of  alarm  she  made  he  moved  and  spoke. 
It  was  her  father. 

"  Go  back  to  sleep  again.    I'm  going  out." 

"You  mustn't,  dear,"  she  said,  confused.  "It's  the 
middle  of  the  night.  Or  else  it's  morning.  Anyway  it's 
too  dark  to  do  anything.  Father,  please." 

"  Lie  down,"  he  said,  "  and  get  your  sleep.  You'll 
need  it.  I'll  tell  you  about  it  when  I  come  back." 

He  opened  the  door,  went  out  and  shut  it  with  a  bang, 
as  if  to  give  her  added  corroboration,  and  she  heard  his 
steps,  quick  and  light,  upon  the  pavement.  She  could  not 
follow  him,  but  it  was  impossible  to  sleep.  Step  by  step 
of  late  she  had  entered  into  a  state  of  intense  nervousness 
responsive  to  every  move  he  made.  She  was  living  in  a 
condition  of  acute  alarm,  watchful  and,  at  every  shift  in 
the  current  of  their  lives,  reminding  herself  to  be  pre 
pared.  She  got  up,  shut  her  windows,  went  into  the  lab 
oratory  and  turned  on  the  light.  His  table  was  empty  ex 
cept  for  some  loose  sheets  of  paper,  pen  and  ink.  The 
paper  was  covered  with  his  fine  small  script.  It  was,  she 
judged  from  the  first  words,  a  scientific  exposition;  it  had 
no  significance  for  her.  She  looked  in  all  possible  hiding- 
places  for  the  box  he  had  carried  in  his  hand  that 
morning.  It  was  not  there.  He  must  have  taken  it  with 
him.  She  returned  to  the  living  room,  dressed,  put  on  a 
coat  because  her  nervousness,  rather  than  the  night,  had 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        235 

made  her  cold,  and  sat  down  to  wait.  It  was  eleven  when 
she  finished  dressing,  and  at  twelve  she  lay  down  on  her 
bed  as  she  was  and  drew  the  blankets  over  her.  Now  she  I 
was  vividly  awake,  facing  the  night  or  the  call  which  i 
might  draw  her  forth  into  it,  possibly  to  find  him  or  go 
with  him  on  some  quest.  She  felt  the  gradations  of 
squalid  misery  the  watcher  always  feels:  the  personal 
discomfort  of  meeting  the  night  in  disorderly  precautions 
against  its  chill,  the  inevitable  anger  at  the  rape  of  those 
sweet  hours.  And  then,  at  two,  he  came.  She  heard  his 
steps  growing  along  the  pavement,  she  heard  his  key  in 
the  lock,  and  he  came  in.  When  he  closed  the  door  be 
hind  him  he  drew  a  deep  breath.  Something,  it  said,  was 
done.  At  first  she  thought  she  would  not  speak.  He 
should  believe  she  was  asleep  and  then  he  might  go  into 
his  room  and  sleep  also.  But  he  called  her. 

"  Andrea !  "  The  tone  was  short  and  sharp.  "  Wake 
up." 

"  Yes,  father,"  she  said,  threw  off  her  covering  and 
rose.  She  turned  on  the  light  and  he  gave  another  sound 
of  satisfaction. 

"  You  dressed,"  he  said.  "  That's  good.  Now  sit  down 
and  I'll  tell  you." 

He  drew  forward  one  of  the  chairs  from  the  table  and 
motioned  her  to  take  it.  He  was  about  to  pull  off  his 
coat,  but  she  stopped  him  by  a  touch. 

"  Keep  it  on,"  she  said.    "  It's  cold." 

He  sat  down  as  he  was  and  she  took  the  chair  he  had 
indicated. 

"  Andrea,"  said  he,  "  were  you  surprised  when  I  found 
the  case  of  olympium  had  been  stolen  and  was  neither 
taken  aback  nor  —  nor  anything  you'd  have  expected  me 
to  be?  " 

"  No,"  she  said  stupidly.    Then  a  little  outcry  against 


236        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

the  way  she  found  life  treating  her  did  leap  from  her. 
"  Father,"  she  said,  "  I  don't  believe  there's  enough  of 
me  left  to  be  surprised  at  anything." 

"  I  told  you,"  he  said,  "  I  knew  it  was  coming.  I  knew 
they  were  going  to  break  and  enter  and  get  it  away  from 
me.  If  they  found  me  watching  it,  they'd  kill  me.  If 
they  found  you,  and  you  resisted,  they'd  kill  you.  So  I 
put  it  in  the  box  you  saw  me  carry  out  this  morning.  I 
told  you  it  was  certain  appliances,  I  don't  remember  what. 
I  thought  you  might  as  well  not  know.  The  less  you 
knew,  the  less  they  could  make  you  tell.  I  carried  it 
round  with  me  all  day,  and  that  woman  came  here  and 
stole  the  case  she  thought  it  was  in,  and  Peter  Harvey  is 
a  fool  for  his  pains.  And  when  I  was  out  to-day,  An 
drea  "  —  here  his  voice  rose  exultantly  and  she  saw  this 
was  the  climax  of  his  flamboyant  deed  —  "I  went  through 
a  street  where  they  were  laying  bricks  in  front  of  vacant 
lots  they're  filling  in.  And  I  went  up  there  to-night  and 
pried  up  the  bricks,  and  buried  my  olympium  in  the  sand. 
It's  God's  mercy  the  weather  is  mild.  No  frost,  Andrea  I 
God  meant  it,  don't  you  see?  " 

"But,  father,"  she  cried,  "you've  hidden  it  so  you 
never  can  get  it  again.  You've  thrown  it  away." 

"  No,  I  haven't,  my  girl,"  said  he,  and  now  he  looked  so 
sly  that  he  seemed  no  longer  her  father  but  a  malevolent 
intelligence  that  might  easily  become  dreadful  to  her.  "  I 
have  counted  the  bricks,  north,  east,  south  and  west.  I 
have  measured  the  distance  from  the  corner.  I  could  go 
there  with  a  flash-light  and  dig  it  up  again  in  twenty 
minutes.  And  when  weVe  found  another  place  where 
Peter  Harvey's  spies  won't  break  in  and  brain  us  for  it, 
I'll  dig  it  up  again  and  you'll  see  —  you'll  see!  " 

He  laughed  derisively  and  long,  and  she  was  afraid. 

"Now,"  he  said,  "I'll  make  out  my  chart,  so  that 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        237 

whether  I'm  alive  or  dead,  it  shaVt  be  lost.    It  won't 
take  long." 

He  went  off  into  the  laboratory,  and  she  heard  him 
laughing  in  what  seemed  that  terrible  derision  against 
the  hostile  powers  he  had  outwitted.  She  rose,  smoothed 
the  clothing  on  her  bed  and  suddenly  felt,  like  a  tortured 
child,  how  bright  the  light  was  in  the  room,  but  that  she 
had  no  strength  left  to  turn  it  off.  She  lay  down  and  cov 
ered  her  eyes  and  was  immediately  asleep.  As  she  fell 
into  the  gulf  of  it,  she  was  conscious  of  but  one  thing: 
that  she  had  escaped  that  torturing  light. 


XXII 

AGAIN  it  seemed  to  Andrea  that  she  had  been  asleep  a 
long  time,  more  than  a  night,  sunk  in  the  depths  of  many 
nights,  and  that  she  was  slowly  and  unwillingly  coming 
awake.  Yet  because  it  was  so  still  a  paradise  where  she 
lay,  it  became  the  more  essential  to  her  to  cling  there,  to 
whatever  she  could  find  belonging  to  it,  and  refuse  to  come 
awake.  She  might  have  been  a  water  creature  the  slow 
persistent  action  of  the  breathing  tide  was  trying  to  cast 
up  into  an  element  less  friendly,  so  that  she  had  to  lay 
hold  of  what  she  might,  possibly  the  piles  of  the  harbor 
of  that  too  familiar  shore,  and  sway  there,  her  body  laved 
by  the  moving  water,  and  yet  safe  in  it  so  long  as  she  held 
on.  Wherever  she  was  —  and  it  seemed  mysteriously 
the  room  as  well  as  the  encompassing  tide  —  she  was 
aware,  not  through  hearing  or  the  testimony  of  her  closed 
eyes,  that  some  one  had  come  in.  At  first  it  seemed  to 
be  one  person  and  then  it  was  two  who  were  beside  her, 
in  some  manner  contemplating  her.  It  cost  her  no  trouble 
to  reconcile  being  in  the  water  and  at  the  same  time  in 
her  bed.  It  cost  her  no  thought  to  reconcile  the  two  per 
sons  as  being  very  near,  intensely  interested  in  her  and 
so  well  known  to  her  that  she  could  accept  their  presence 
while  in  no  sense  defining  it.  Whether  it  was  dark  or 
light  about  her  she  did  not  know,  the  artificial  brightness 
of  the  room  where  she  lay  in  the  surge  of  sleep  presently 

238 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        239 

to  break,  or  the  darkness  of  the  water  where  she  hung  in 
that  motioned  calm.  But  the  two  were  there.  They 
wished  her  infinitely  well,  and  though  they  seemed  to 
have  nothing  to  say  to  her,  their  presence  alone  brought 
her  an  exquisite  calm.  She  had,  for  an  instant,  the 
fleeting  certainty  which  comes  at  moments  in  the  troubled 
space  of  a  lifetime,  of  that  complete  understanding  which 
puts  an  end  to  doubt.  It  is  the  golden  key  we  are  all 
seeking  and  are  never  allowed  to  possess.  But  sometimes, 
for  a  moment  merely,  it  seems  as  if  we  are  permitted  to 
hold  it  in  our  tired  hands.  So,  for  the  instant  allotted 
her,  she  held  the  key.  In  trying  afterward  to  remember 
and  weave  the  moment  into  the  web  of  certainties  so  that 
she  might  never  lose  it,  she  thought  of  the  instant  as  very 
short  and  again  that  it  was  long.  For  it  seemed  to  have 
lasted  from  the  day  when  God  made  man  to  the  day  when 
He  meant  to  gather  him  up  to  carry  him  elsewhere,  and 
the  significance  of  it  was:  "  This  is  My  intention  toward 
you."  And  the  intention  was  beneficently  kind,  so  kind 
that  there  was  something  ridiculous  in  the  scepticism  of 
a  world  which  had  found  it  anything  else.  She  had 
nothing  to  say  to  the  two  who  were  bending  over  her  in 
this  intensity  of  concern,  as  if  they  were  bent  on  stamp 
ing  her  individuality  on  their  own  memory  to  keep,  a  most 
sacred  possession,  as  one  keeps  the  portrait  of  the  far 
beloved.  She  felt  no  astonishment  or  gratitude  over  be 
ing  allowed,  for  that  instant,  to  hold  the  golden  key. 
Everything  was  so  inevitably  as  it  had  to  be,  that  what 
was  showed  her  its  benign  face  as  the  child  of  what  had 
been  and  the  precursor  of  what  must  be.  But  suddenly 
something  silent  in  her  mind  spoke  out.  She  heard  it 
quite  plainly,  as  if  a  sleeper  should  wake  and  unexpectedly 
throw  a  word  into  a  theme  that  was  going  on  without  him: 
,  you've  got  on  your  blue  dress!  " 


240        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

And  one  of  the  two  beside  her  either  laughed  or  in  some 
way  implied  a  sense  of  the  absurd  dearness  that  leads  to 
such  laughing,  and  the  other  joined  it,  and  it  was  appar 
ent  they  loved  her  for  that  in  some  special  way  and  that 
somehow  she  had  shown  them  their  coming  meant  to  her 
all  they  could  have  wished.  And  then,  shattering  the 
stillness  of  the  room,  dispelling  the  dear  silent  laughter 
of  the  two,  she  heard  her  father's  voice,  full,  assured,  com 
manding: 

"Andrea!    Andrea!    Andrea!" 

And  her  eyes,  after  that  instant  when  the  water  cast 
her  up  and  the  stillness  and  the  presences  were  blotted  out, 
came  open  to  daylight  in  the  room,  paling  out  the  gas,  and 
she  sat  up,  her  heart  suffocating  her,  and  set  her  feet  on 
the  floor.  Whether  she  answered  her  father  she  could 
never  afterward  be  sure.  Sometimes  she  made  herself  be 
lieve  she  did  answer,  that  she  cried: 

"  Yes,  father,  yes!    I  am  coming." 

But  she  did,  without  longer  delay  than  that  one  be 
wildered  instant,  run  to  the  laboratory  door  and  throw  it 
open  on  such  drearness  as  the  grey  dawn  seemed  to  have 
come  to  show  her.  He  sat  there  at  his  table,  his  head 
fallen  forward  on  the  scattered  sheets  of  paper  under  his 
hand,  and  the  hand  had  a  curious  look  of  possession,  of 
asserting  its  dominion  to  the  last.  She  touched  him  on 
the  shoulder,  not  to  waken  him  too  suddenly,  cried  out, 
in  spite  of  herself,  and  started  back.  She  had  never 
touched  a  shoulder  that  felt  like  that.  She  had  been  in 
the  act  of  bending  to  look  at  him  more  closely,  to  put  her 
face  to  his,  to  call  to  him.  But  the  touch  told  her,  and 
she  ran  out  of  the  room  and  out  of  the  house  and  looked 
along  the  dreary  street  just  waking.  A  man  was  coming 
toward  her,  a  watchman  from  night  duty  at  the  garage, 
and  she  beckoned  him,  looking  so  wild  of  countenance 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        241 

and  so  strange  with  her  disordered  hair  and  clothes,  that 
he  broke  into  a  run.    But  she  told  him  quietly: 

"  Will  you  get  me  some  one?    I  can't  leave  him.    He 
is  dead." 


XXIII 

LATER  that  morning,  indeed  well  along  in  the  forenoon 
to  give  Andrea  time  to  get  her  house  in  order,  Brooke  set 
out  to  deliver  the  recovered  case.  He  had  meant  to  go 
immediately  after  breakfast,  and  chafed  at  waiting. 
But  his  father,  with  whom  he  had  had  a  long  session  of 
talk  the  night  before,  detained  him.  Peter  was  in  the 
library  when  Brooke  came  down. 

"  I  wouldn't  go  over  there  now,"  Peter  Harvey  said, 
appearing  in  the  doorway,  and  yet  speaking  with  lowered 
voice.  His  wife  did  not  know  what  things  had  come  to 
pass,  and  it  was  inexpedient,  to  his  mind,  that  she  should 
ever  know,  unless  she  did  sometime  return  to  her  old 
abounding  charity.  Peter  felt  he  couldn't  bear  to  hear 
anybody  else  blamed,  at  least  from  Isabel's  lips,  either 
Miss  Bixby  who  had  stolen  the  thing  or  the  Doves  who 
had  brought  such  obscure  issues  into  the  house  which  had 
been  confused  enough  before. 

"  She'll  be  anxious,"  said  Brooke. 

"  Not  after  your  note.    You  said  you  left  one." 

"  Still,"  said  Brooke,  "  I  do  think  she'll  be  anxious." 

He  had  what  he  called  a  wireless  feeling  that  Andrea 
needed  him,  though  he  had  been  smiling  at  himself  since 
the  early  morning  when  he  woke  with  it  and  told  himself 
it  was  S.  0.  S.  And  yet  he  knew  the  probabilities  might 
be  it  was  only  because  he  needed  her.  All  night  he  had 
been  sending  out  S.  0.  S.  to  her. 

"  Come  in  here,"  said  his  father. 

242 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        243 

Brooke  stepped  in  and  Peter  shut  the  library  door. 

"  Do  you  know  how  they  live  down  there?  "  he  asked. 
"  It's  a  kind  of  a  barn  where  they  eat  and  one  of  'em 
eleeps.  I  don't  know  what's  in  behind.  You'll  only 
bother  her  if  you  go  butting  in  now.  Your  mother  and  I 
went  in  the  morning  and  it  was  all  right  enough  because 
they  knew  we  were  coming,  but  I  shouldn't  do  it  again. 
The  place  was  as  neat  as  wax.  The  girl's  a  wonder. 
But  I  shouldn't  go  for  a  couple  of  hours  at  least." 

Brooke  fretted  away  the  time  for  an  hour,  taking  down 
a  book  from  the  shelf,  reading  it  discontentedly,  flouting 
it  with  inarticulate  comment  and  putting  it  back.  His 
father,  writing  with  what  seemed  an  unnoting  placidity, 
Bmiled  a  little,  and  when  Brooke  came  up  to  the  table 
and  stopped,  looking  down  at  him  evidently  with  some 
thing  to  communicate,  Peter  glanced  inquiringly  up. 

"  Dad,"  said  Brooke,  with  the  disproportioned  irrita 
tion  of  one  who  finds  his  task  of  inaction  too  much  for 
him,  "  how  can  you  sit  there  paying  bills?  " 

"  I  feel  rather  obliged  to,"  said  Peter  mildly.  "  We 
have  to,  you  know  —  pay  our  bills." 

"  You  seem  to  know  such  a  confounded  lot,"  Brooke 
grumbled,  "  you  and  grannie.  You  go  along  about  your 
business,  both  of  you,  as  if  nothing  was  ever  going  to  faze 
you.  She's  a  regular  New  England  witch  and  you're  a 
Bphinx,  a  he-sphinx."  Then  it  came  out,  what  his  tumul 
tuous  mind  had  been  hurrying  to.  "  I  suppose  you  know 
I  wanted  to  marry  Andrea." 

"  She  knew  it,  anyway,"  said  Peter,  "  your  grandmother 
did.  Only  she  thinks  you  want  to  now." 

"  The  devil  she  does!" 

Brooke  stared.    His  father  was  on  the  point  of  adding: 

"  She  says  Phil  never  married  Andrea.  What  do  you 
say?  " 


244        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

But  he  shut  his  lips  on  that.  With  a  present  befogged 
to  him  the  future  looked  too  precarious  to  tamper  with. 
He  did  not  look  up  at  Brooke  again  and  inwardly  advised 
himself  to  curb  his  curiosity  as  to  whether  Brooke  was 
looking  at  him.  The  next  moment,  when  his  interest 
really  wouldn't  down  and  he  concluded  he  might  as  well 
know  how  the  boy  took  it,  Brooke  snatched  the  case  from 
the  table  and  disappeared  with  the  speed  of  a  wind  that, 
having  made  all  the  disturbance  that  could  be  expected 
of  its  particular  velocity  might  as  well  hurry  on  to  an 
other  corner  of  the  heavens  and  new  cloud  spaces.  Peter 
heard  the  outer  door  bang  after  him,  and  immediately 
gave  up  his  work.  It  had  been  perfunctory,  assumed 
to  give  him  a  not  too  exigent  air  and  keep  Brooke  at  ease 
with  him.  Now  he  began  whistling  softly  and  thought 
about  life. 

Brooke  dashed  down  to  the  dreary  West  End  street  in 
short  order  and  plied  the  knocker  with  determination.  He 
was  met  at  once,  not  by  Andrea  but  a  stout  fresh-faced 
woman  with  her  out-door  things  on.  She  looked  at  him 
doubtfully  and  he  asked  for  Andrea.  She  wasn't  sure, 
she  told  him,  whether  Miss  Dove  would  feel  like  seeing 
him.  Or  perhaps  he  was  one  of  the  family. 

"  What  is  it?  "  asked  Brooke. 

His  heart  sickened.  This,  he  understood,  was  the 
meaning  of  her  S.  0.  S.  The  woman  answered  now  with 
a  professional  gentleness,  seeing  he  was  moved: 

"  It's  Mr.  Dove.  He  died  last  night.  I'm  going  out 
now  to  get  in  some  supplies." 

Brooke  motioned  her  to  stand  aside  and  walked  into 
the  living  room.  The  laboratory  door  was  open  and  he 
could  see  the  outline  of  something  on  trestles  and  a  bit  of 
Andrea's  skirt  where  she  sat  beside  it.  The  woman  fol 
lowed  him  until  he  entered  and  she  saw  Andrea's  face,  as 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        245 

she  caught  sight  of  him,  and  then  she  went  out  and  left 
them.  Brooke  felt  himself  shuddering  all  over.  It  was 
new  to  him.  He  had  not  shuddered  in  battle,  but  this 
present  tremor  was  because  he  had  seen  Andrea  as  dead. 
She  was  entirely  composed.  She  even  looked  up  smil 
ingly. 

"  I  hoped  you'd  come,"  she  said.  "  I've  got  something 
to  tell  you.  I  shall  be  going  away  at  once.  Father's 
gone,  you  see.  I  couldn't  stay  here  without  him." 

For  a  moment  he  thought  she  meant  she  had  resolved 
to  go  the  road  her  father  had  taken,  but  at  once  he  saw 
that  was  not  so.  She  was  regarding  the  world  "  but  as 
the  world." 

"  Of  course  you  must  go  away,"  he  answered.  "  You'll 
come  to  us." 

That  she  might  not  have  heard,  for  she  paid  no  atten 
tion  to  it. 

"  I  shall  go  to  New  York,"  she  said.  "  I  shall  work  for 
speed,  —  my  stenography,  you  know.  Then  I  can  get 
a  job.  But  that  isn't  it,"  she  continued  quickly,  to  fore 
stall  him.  "  I  sha'n't  see  any  of  you  again,  and  so  I  want 
to  say  now,  while  father's  here  —  "  She  paused  a  moment 
and  put  her  hand  to  her  throat  as  if  it  hurt  her.  "  He 
never  would  have  let  me  do  it,"  she  went  on,  "  never, 
never,  if  he'd  been  himself.  Mother  never  would.  But 
they  don't  blame  me.  They've  been  lovely  — "  Here 
she  stopped  again,  with  that  pathetic  hand  at  her  throat, 
and  he  advanced  a  pace  and  took  the  hand  and  held  it 
hard. 

"  What 's  the  use  of  talking,"  he  said,  "  when  I  know? 
There's  never  anything  you  need  say  to  me." 

"  Oh,  yes,  there  is,"  said  Andrea,  smiling  at  him  and 
leaving  the  hand  in  his,  very  glad  it  was  there  to  help 
her  through  her  trial.  "  You  don't  know  this.  I  never 


246        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

saw  your  brother.  I  saw  his  picture  at  your  house,  and 
I  thought  it  was  you  and  you  were  killed,  and  I  told  your 
father  and  mother  their  son  had  married  me.  I  did  it  for 
money.  That  was  precisely  what  I  did  it  for,  —  for 
money." 

She  did  not  look  up  at  him  and  he  stood  staring  at  the 
line  her  lashes  made.  When  she  did  look  up,  it  was  not  at 
him  but  at  that  covered  immobility  which  had  been  her 
father,  as  if  to  gain  courage  from  it. 

"  And  I've  got  my  father  back,"  she  said  dreamily  and 
most  happily.  "He  hasn't  been  himself,  not  for  years; 
but  last  night  before  he  called  me  —  "  There  she  paused, 
knowing  she  could  not  go  into  that  with  any  chance  of 
making  herself  understood,  and  Brooke  gripped  her  hand 
and  could  say  nothing. 

"  You  hurt  my  hand,"  said  Andrea,  with  another  little 
smile  that  thanked  him  for  the  hurt. 

His  kindness,  his  dearness  in  not  letting  it  go  as  soon 
as  he  knew  she  told  lies  for  money  seemed  to  her  some 
thing  to  remember  afterward  with  the  certainty  of  the  two 
presences  that  came  to  her  last  night  and  the  feel  of  the 
golden  key. 

"  Why,"  said  Brooke,  having  not  much  of  a  voice  to 
say  it,  and  letting  her  hand  loose  a  very  little,  "  why,  my 
darling,  then  you  did  wait  for  me,  after  all." 

She  looked  at  him  now,  and  more  and  more  he  seemed 
a  part  of  the  night  and  the  golden  key.  But  there,  with 
the  immobile  presence  beside  them,  they  stopped.  Andrea 
was  still  sure  that  although  he  forgave  her  she  had  proved 
too  poor  a  thing  to  be  admitted  again  to  the  heaven  where 
she  had  lived  with  him  in  fancy,  and  Brooke  knew  they 
were  already  there  in  the  heaven  and  that  he  could  pres 
ently  tell  her  so.  But  this  moment  belonged  not  to  him 
but  to  the  dead.  The  body  lying  there  insisted,  by  its 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        247 

very  presence,  on  all  the  rites  and  oblations  due  the  clos 
ing  of  the  account  of  dust  with  dust.  Brooke  held  up  the 
case  before  her. 

"  What  shall  I  do  with  it?  "  he  asked.  "  Let  me  keep 
it  for  you  till  —  Father'll  put  it  in  the  safe." 

At  that  she  had  her  little  rueful  smile,  and  this  too  was 
a  thing  she  could  not  go  into  now.  Why  tell  him  olym- 
pium  had  been  capriciously,  by  one  of  those  turns  of  the 
hand  of  fate  that  seem  so  idle  and  yet  are  full  of  a  deep 
intent,  snatched  away  again  and  covered  from  the  eyes  of 
men?  Were  the  gods  really  jealous,  she  wondered  briefly. 
Was  their  only  supremacy  this  secret  of  the  continuance 
of  things,  and  did  they  fear  for  their  own  godhead  if  they 
gave  it  over  into  mortal  hands?  And  then  for  an  instant 
she  had  again  the  feel  of  the  golden  key.  She  sat  looking 
at  the  familiar  case,  wondering.  They  had  guarded  it  so 
long,  she  and  her  father,  that  it  seemed  to  her  impossible  it 
should  not  carry  some  vast  significance. 

"  How  does  it  feel?  "  she  asked.  "  Is  it  light?  Could 
there  be  something  in  it,  do  you  think?  " 

"Something  in  it?"  he  repeated.  "Why,  isn't  his 
olympium  in  it?  " 

That  she  did  not  answer. 

"  Yes,  keep  it,"  she  said.  "  Open  it  when  you  feel  like 
it  and  see.  And  now  will  you  look  over  those  papers  on  the 
desk?  They  were  what  he  was  working  on  last  night.  See 
if  they  are  directions.  See  if  you  can  find  a  sort  of  chart." 

He  went  over  to  the  desk  and  began  examining  the  pa 
pers  page  by  page,  reading,  comparing,  frowning  more 
and  more.  Finally  he  rose  and  came  to  her,  evening  their 
edges  thoughtfully. 

"  I'm  pretty  sure,"  he  hesitated,  "  I'm  sorry,  but  I'm 
sure  his  mind  wasn't  working  right.  They  are  —  Andrea, 
dear,  they're  not  what  you'd  expect." 


248        THE   WIND   BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS 

That  was  a  long  way  from  describing  their  madness  of 
confusion,  but  it  was,  he  felt,  all  he  could  say. 

"Aren't  they,"  she  seemed  begging  him  to  agree, 
"  aren't  they  scientific  data,  something  like  that?  " 

He  shook  his  head. 

"  They're  theorizings,"  he  said,  "  about  the  distances 
of  planets  and  the  influence  of  elements  and  the  travelling 
of  sound.  They're  not  coherent  even.  No,  there's  noth 
ing,  Andrea,  nothing." 

"  There's  a  chart,"  she  insisted.  "  There  must  be  a 
chart." 

He  showed  her  a  sheet  traversed  by  one  wandering  line. 
In  a  corner  of  the  page  were  figures,  the  words  "  ten 
feet  from  the  corner,  thirty  bricks  west,"  and  then  the 
whole  had  been  effaced  by  a  scrawling  network  of  lines 
and  written  under  it,  as  if  in  a  tempest  of  bewilderment 
was  the  word,  three  times  repeated,  "  no  —  no  —  no." 
She  was  right.  The  gods  had  hidden  the  evidence  of  im 
mortality  under  the  bricks  of  an  unknown  street.  But 
she  sought  for  the  feel  of  the  golden  key  and  was  con 
tent. 

"  I'll  take  the  whole  business  away  with  me,"  said 
Brooke.  "Andrea!  " 

She  looked  up  at  him  and  waited. 

"  She's  back  again,"  he  said,  "  your  woman.  Leave  her 
here  and  come  out  for  a  little  walk." 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Andrea.  "  I  promised  him  I  wouldn't 
leave  him.  I  did  this  morning  because  I  had  to  run  out 
and  tell  the  man  to  send  somebody  in.  But  I  couldn't 
quite  help  that,  and  it  didn't  seem  to  matter  because  he 
had  just  spoken  to  me,  and  they'd  both  been  here.  I 
know  her  dress  was  blue !  That  was  the  queer  part  of  it. 
And  besides,  the  olympium  wasn't  here  and  he  hadn't  had 
time  to  tell  me  what  to  do." 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN   THE   WORLDS        249 

All  this  troubled  Brooke  exceedingly,  because,  not  un 
derstanding,  she  seemed  to  him  light-headed.  But  the 
nurse  came  and  stood  in  the  doorway,  looking  kind  and 
capable,  and  Andrea  smiled  at  her  as  if  she  liked  her,  and 
Brooke  read  the  counsel  in  the  woman's  eyes,  and,  with  a 
word  to  Andrea,  took  up  the  case  again  and  went  away. 

His  father  was  still  in  the  library  and  Brooke  burst 
in  on  him. 

"  See  here,"  said  he,  "  why  don't  we  go  over  to  Tech  and 
see  what's  in  this  thing?  " 

Peter  laid  down  the  pen  that  gave  him  pretext  for  his 
solitude,  and  rose. 

"  What's  in  it?  "  he  repeated.  "  Why,  don't  they  know 
what's  in  it?  " 

"  She  doesn't,"  said  Brooke.  "  And  he  —  father,  he's 
dead." 

And  all  that  occurred  to  Peter  to  say  was  "  Poor  devil  I  " 
It  was  not  even  in  his  mind  to  say  "  Poor  girl !  "  He 
could  not  cajole  himself  into  any  decent  pretence  of  think 
ing  Andrea  was  not  most  mercifully  set  free. 

"  I  thought  I'd  better  bring  it  away  with  me,"  said 
Brooke.  "  She's  in  no  state  to  be  reminded  of  it.  Now 
what  do  you  think  of  taking  it  over  to  Tech  and  getting 
it  analysed?  " 

"  It's  locked,  isn't  it?  "  said  Peter.  "  She  give  you  the 
key?  " 

"  No.  I  couldn't  bother  her.  I'd  rather  break  it  open. 
I'll  take  the  responsibility.  Dad  —  "  he  hesitated  and 
finished,  in  a  manly  way,  "  you  might  as  well  know  I'm 
undertaking  all  sorts  of  responsibilities  for  her  from  now 
on." 

Peter  looked  at  him,  tried  to  say  the  proper  thing,  won 
dering  what  it  was,  failed,  got  up,  put  his  hand  on 
Brooke's  shoulder  and  asked: 


250        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

"  She  isn't  alone  down  there?  " 

"  No,  there's  a  nurse  with  her.  That's  the  best  we  can 
do." 

"You  run  up,"  said  Peter,  after  another  minute  of 
thought,  "  and  tell  your  grandmother:  just  that  he's  dead, 
you  know,  and  how  you  left  her." 

Brooke  found  the  rest  of  that  forenoon  a  processional 
of  strange  things.  He  ran  up  to  grandmother,  who  was 
in  bed,  and  succinctly  reported  all  he  had  learned  at  An 
drea's,  qualifying  nothing,  and  she  looked  at  him  out  of 
the  lace  clouds  that  obscured  the  ills  time  had  done  her 
and  said: 

"  Yes,  dear.    I'll  get  up." 

He  ran  downstairs  and  found  Beatrice  standing  with 
his  father  at  the  library  door,  pink  from  her  morning  walk 
and  subtly  not  the  Beatrice  of  yesterday.  Brooke  stopped 
with  a  jolt  of  the  heart,  knowing  he  should  never  see  the 
Beatrice  of  yesterday  again.  She  was  quietly  confident, 
and,  if  looks  meant  anything,  what  those  who  have  lost 
the  world  call  happy.  She  was  evidently,  at  the  instant 
of  his  downward  rush,  trying  to  tell  Peter  something  diffi 
cult,  and  the  slightly  dropped  lids  gave  her  face  that  ex 
quisite  softness  and  wonder  of  knowledge  mothers  wear. 
But  she  roused  herself  for  Brooke  and  gave  him,  with  the 
old  smile  of  youthful  understanding,  something  ineffably 
more. 

"  Morning,  Brooke,"  said  she.  "  I've  been  trying  to 
tell  him  "  —  with  a  hand  returned  to  Peter  —  "  how  differ 
ent  everything  is  now  I've  heard.  I  was  right,  you  see. 
He  did  like  me.  I  was  the  one.  And  life  isn't  so  awfully 
long  anyway.  I'm  not  going  to  whimper.  I'm  going  to 
play  the  game." 

Peter,  delighting  in  her  gameness,  yet  heard  the  com 
menting  voice  of  time  recognised  within  him,  loving  her, 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        251 

lamenting  over  her  and  mourning:  "  Life  isn't  so  very 
long?  Not  for  old  age  upstairs  there  in  its  bed,  fight 
ing  the  last  gallant  inch,  not  for  me  at  my  breathless 
milestone  of  middle  age.  But  you,  poor  flower  of  youth ! 
how  many  mornings  have  got  to  shed  their  dews,  how 
many  suns  set  in  lonely  beauty  on  the  grave  of  your  re 
membrance!  It's  a  long  pull,  dear  youth,  to  that  goal 
of  everlasting  faithfulness,  with  oblivion  dogging  you  all 
the  way."  But  all  he  said  was: 

"  That's  my  girl.    Take  it  standing." 

And  Brooke,  wishing  he  could  tell  her  about  Andrea 
and  how  she  and  Andrea  would  like  each  other,  drew  back 
from  flouting  her  with  his  own  and  Andrea's  consummate 
bliss,  and  Beatrice  went  up  to  find  Isabel,  and  Brooke  and 
his  father  set  off  to  Cambridge. 

Peter  Harvey  had  a  friend  in  Technology,  an  eminent 
chemist,  and  him  they  sought.  They  gave  him  no  expla 
nation,  no  previous  history  of  the  leather  case.  They 
simply  wanted  him  to  tell  them  what  was  inside.  The 
eminent  chemist  stood  by  while  Brooke  broke  the  lock 
and  then  took  it  over  to  a  table  under  a  good  light  and 
opened  it.  There  it  was,  a  package  done  up  securely  in 
newspaper,  tied  with  string.  His  Eminence  lifted  it  out, 
untied  it,  opened  the  paper,  looked  at  the  contents,  glanced 
at  the  two  men,  went  back  to  the  contents  again,  took  up 
a  pinch  of  it  and  let  it  fall.  Then  he  looked  at  Peter 
again  and  inquired  pleasantly: 

"  What's  the  joke,  old  man?  " 

"  What  do  you  make  of  it?  "  Peter  asked  him. 

"  Handle  it,"  said  His  Eminence.  "  Look  at  it.  Smell 
it,  if  you  want  to.  What  do  you  make  of  it  yourself?  " 

"  Why,"  said  Peter  feeling  unwontedly  small,  "  it  looks 
to  me  like  common  sand." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  professor  drily,  "  that's  what  it  is, 
common  sand.  Now  what's  the  joke?  " 


252        THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

They  never  told  him.  They  apologised,  Peter  so 
shamefacedly  that  His  Eminence  saw  there  was  more  be 
neath  than  he  needed  to  know,  and  forgave  them.  They 
thanked  him  and  went  home.  And  on  the  way  Brooke 
talked  to  him  about  Andrea. 

Meantime  Madam  Brooke  had  got  up  and  seated  her 
self  by  the  fire  in  her  own  room  waiting  until  Susanne 
should  tell  her  Beatrice  had  gone.  When  she  heard  that, 
she  asked  Susanne  to  tell  Mrs.  Harvey  she  wanted  to  see 
her.  Isabel  came  in,  subdued,  her  pink  cheeks  paled, 
her  drooping  air  challenging  the  kindness  the  old  lady's 
was  not  yet  prepared  to  give  her.  She  went  to  her  mother 
and  kissed  the  old  lady's  proffered  cheek. 

"  What  is  it,  dear?  "  she  asked.  "  I  ought  to  have  come 
earlier  but  Bee  has  been  in.  She  kept  me." 

"  I'm  all  right,"  said  Madam  Brooke.  "  There's  your 
chair.  Draw  up." 

It  was  a  low  rocker,  almost,  though  ordinarily  capa 
cious,  like  a  child's  chair,  and  when  Isabel  had  taken  it 
she  felt  small  and  indecisive  beside  her  mother  who  sat 
so  straight  and  high  and  looked  so  perfectly  equipped  for 
the  offices  of  life.  Isabel  did  not  feel  equipped.  She  had 
lost  Miss  Bixby.  She  had  said  good-by  to  her  with  sor 
row  immeasurable  and  tears  unrestrained.  She  had  been 
living  on  Miss  Bixby  and  the  pabulum  she  brought  her 
from  that  vague  other  world.  And  she  sat  there  and 
looked  absently  into  the  fire  and  dreaded  the  impact  of 
her  mother's  kind  intellectuality,  and  her  poor  lip 
trembled. 

"  How's  Bee?  "  asked  Madam  Brooke. 

"  Beautiful,"  said  Isabel.  She  was  glad  to  take  a  de 
laying  saunter  into  Bee's  psychology.  "  She  doesn't  say 
much.  About  all  she  says  is  she's  going  to  play  the  game. 
It's  splendid,  but  I  can't  help  wishing  she  wouldn't  take  it 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        253 

just  that  way,  —  setting  her  teeth,  you  know,  holding  on. 
She  might  get  such  a  lot  of  comfort,  such  direct  inspira 
tion—  " 

"  Out  of  automatic  writing?  "  inquired  Madam  Brooke. 
"  She  couldn't.  Bee  could  no  more  take  comfort  in  that 
than  in  the  witches  that  befuddled  Macbeth.  Now  Isabel, 
how  long  are  you  going  to  keep  this  house  a  house  of 
mourning  over  your  explorations  of  the  dark  continent?  " 

Isabel  looked  at  her  with  appealing  eyes  and  her  lip 
trembled. 

"  Why,  mother,"  she  said,  "  that's  exactly  what  I'm 
trying  to  prevent.  I  don't  want  it  a  house  of  mourning. 
I  want  it  recognised  that  Phil  isn't  dead.  He's  alive  and 
we  can  hear  from  him  every  day." 

"  It  isn't  Phil's  death  that's  made  it  a  house  of  mourn 
ing,"  said  the  old  lady  inexorably.  "  It  isn't  because  the 
rest  of  us  don't  feel  his  presence,  whatever  it  is,  whether 
it's  actually  Phil  or  the  beautiful  memory  of  him.  It  isn't 
Phil  we've  lost.  It's  you." 

Isabel  was  unfeignedly  surprised. 

"Why,"  said  she,  "I'm  right  here.  Nothing  has 
changed  —  except  for  Phil." 

"  Your  husband,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  has  lost  his 
wife.  You  used  to  be  —  0  Belle,  you  never  knew  very 
much,  but  you  were  a  perfect  dear  to  live  with.  Peter 
couldn't  come  into  the  house  without  hooting  to  find  out 
where  you  were.  He  couldn't  settle  to  anything  till  he 
knew.  Now  he  shuts  himself  up  in  the  library  and  pre 
tends  to  write." 

"  That,"  said  Isabel  solemnly,  "  is  his  way  of  meeting 
it.  It's  his  grief,  for  Phil." 

"  It's  grief  for  you.  He  misses  you  like  the  deuce.  He 
may  not  know  it,  but  he  does." 

"  Does  he  miss  me?  "  she  queried,  half  to  herself. 


254        THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

The  pink  crept  into  her  cheeks.  She  looked  suddenly 
charming  and,  the  old  lady  noted,  with  a  pathetic  wonder, 
young.  But  she  wasn't  sparing  her. 

"  As  for  Brooke,"  she  said,  "  you  act  as  if  boys  came 
back  every  day  from  —  where  he's  come  from.  If  it 
hasn't  hurt  him  more  than  it  has,  it's  because  he's  in 
love." 

"  In  love?  "  cried  Isabel.    "  Brooke  in  love?  " 

"  Yes,  with  Andrea  Dove.    Haven't  you  seen  it?  " 

"  That  girl !  "  cried  Isabel,  the  angry  spark  flitting  into 
her  eyes.  "  That  girl  that  said  —  oh,  it  wasn't  true.  She 
might  say  it  till  she  dropped  dead  before  me,  and  I  should 
know  it  wasn't  true." 

"  She  isn't  going  to  drop  dead  before  anybody,"  said 
the  old  lady.  "  She's  going  to  get  good  and  rested  now 
her  father's  gone  —  " 

"  Where  has  he  gone?  " 

"  He's  dead,"  said  Madam  Brooke.  "  And  we've  got 
to  look  out  for  Andrea  till  she  gets  on  her  feet,  and  then 
Brooke'll  look  out  for  her." 

"  Never !  "  said  Isabel.  She  rose  from  the  low  chair 
and  stood,  making  the  most  of  her  height.  "Never!  if 
she  enters  this  house  I  shall  leave  it." 

Madam  Brooke  sat  looking  at  her  for  a  moment,  in  deep 
consideration. 

"  Isabel,"  said  she,  "  if  one  of  your  children  committed 
a  sin  for  your  sake  —  told  a  lie  for  instance,  to  save  your 
life  —  would  you  forgive  him?  " 

"No,"  said  Isabel. 

But  she  knew,  as  Madam  Brooke  did,  that  she  would. 
And  Madam  Brooke  was  prepared  to  tell  her  so. 

"Nonsense!"  said  she.  "Of  course  you  would.  A 
sin  of  love  committed  for  your  sake !  there's  nothing  you'd 
like  better.  Well,  that's  what  Andrea  Dove  did.  She 


THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS        255 

lied  to  make  you  give  her  money  as  Phil's  wife  when  it 
seemed  doubtful  whether  her  fathered  live  to  use  it  if 
she  got  it  in  any  reasonable  way.  And  now  he's  dead  she 
doesn't  want  your  money  or  anything  that  is  yours.  Ex 
cept  Brooke,  of  course.  I'm  in  hopes  she'll  want  him  or 
the  poor  boy'll  break  his  heart." 

"  I  was  never,"  said  Isabel  breathlessly,  "  so  indignant 
in  my  life." 

"  Yes,  you're,  indignant,"  said  the  old  lady  sadly, 
"  which  means  you're  plain  mad.  We  never  knew  you 
had  a  temper,  Isabel,  in  the  old  days  before  we  lost  you." 

Isabel  turned,  without  a  look  at  her,  and  went  out  of 
the  room.  She  walked,  her  mother  thought,  like  Queen 
Victoria.  Madam  Brooke  sat  bending  over  her  trembling 
hands  thinking  sadly  of  the  way  these  groups  of  mortal 
atoms  fly  apart  and  make  their  little  catastrophes  in  the 
complex  order  of  the  movement  which  is  life.  But  she 
had  not  sat  there  long  before  she  heard  her  daughter's 
step  again,  a  quick  rush  unlike  her  ordinary  high-heeled 
trot.  She  came  in,  up  to  her  mother's  knee  and  sank 
down  there. 

"  You  won't  believe  it,  darling,"  she  cried,  between  sob 
bing  and  excited  laughter.  "  But  I've  heard  from  Phil. 
Miss  Bixby  left  the  last  message  on  the  table  and  I've 
just  found  it.  How  he  managed  it  I  don't  know.  But 
if  they  can  move  the  pencil  in  the  human  hand,  why 
shouldn't  they  pick  it  up  when  they  find  it  lying  there  all 
ready?  Phil  has  forgiven  her.  He  tells  me  to  forgive 
her.  And  I  can  do  it  now.  I've  heard  from  him,  mother. 
Don't  you  realize  I've  heard  from  him?  And  I'll  be  good, 
mother.  Oh,  truly  I'll  be  good." 

Madam  Brooke  laid  her  hand  on  the  beautiful  shining 
hair.  Strange  things  came  into  this  old  lady's  mind 
sometimes,  and  now  she  was  thinking  that  women  in  grief, 


256       THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS 

in  antique  days,  tore  their  hair  and  covered  it  with  ashes; 
but  now  the  despairing  mourner  omits  no  last  ceremonial 
of  a  symmetrical  coiffure.  Isabel  crouched  there  like  a 
child  and  cried  like  a  child,  no  controlled  and  ordered  rite 
of  weeping  but  honest  gulps  and  floods.  When  this 
abated,  she  got  to  her  feet,  wiped  her  face  and  asked  quite 
timidly,  in  a  way  that  made  her,  like  a  child,  engaging: 

"  Shall  I  go  to  see  her?  " 

Madam  Brooke  shook  her  head. 

"  Not  yet,"  she  answered.  "  Not  these  first  days.  You 
see,  you  were  rather  nasty  to  her.  She's  in  no  condition 
to  be  blamed,  and  it  mightn't  be  easy  to  convince  her  you 
didn't  mean  to  be  nasty  again." 

"  I  thought,"  Isabel  ventured,  "  she  might  come  here  to 
us." 

"  Certainly,"  said  her  mother,  "  most  certainly.  It's 
the  only  way." 

"  And  then,"  Isabel  continued,  looking  down  at  the  toe 
of  her  shoe,  as  if  she  were  most  desirous  of  not  encounter 
ing  any  possible  negative  in  her  mother's  face,  "  I  thought, 
as  she's  been  connected  with  her  father's  pursuits  in  that 
direction,  she  might  be  willing  to  try  the  automatic  writ 
ing." 

"  Isabel !  "  cried  the  old  lady,  so  stridently  that  her 
daughter  started.  "  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  you're  going 
on  with  this  jugglery  that's  turned  you  into  a  changeling 
in  your  husband's  house?  And  after  you  told  me  you'd 
be  good?  " 

Isabel  stood  there,  still  regarding  the  toe  of  her  shoe. 

"  Isabel,"  said  Madam  Brooke,  "  come  here.  Nearer. 
Yes,  come  right  here  to  mother.  Now,  Isabel,  I'm  going 
to  trust  you.  Do  you  hear?  And  you  are  going  to  be  — 
good." 

"  Yes,  mother,"  said  Isabel. 


THE   WIND  BETWEEN  THE   WORLDS        257 

And  they  talked  of  other  things. 

"  But  will  she?  "  the  old  lady  wondered,  when  she  was 
again  by  herself.  "  Or  will  she  go  on  muddling  her  brains 
and  making  her  lip  tremble  so  I  can't  look  at  it  without 
wanting  to  cry?  It's  an  awful  thing  to  make  an  old 
woman  cry." 

And  she  laughed,  so  that  Susanne,  coming  in  to  mend 
the  fire,  smiled  at  her  sympathetically. 

"  Isn't  it,  Susanne?  "  asked  the  old  lady,  and  Susanne, 
always  blithely  willing  to  accept  the  immediate  point  of 
view,  said: 

"  Yes,  Madam  Brooke." 

"  Then,"  said  the  old  lady,  rising,  "  get  a  taxi,  and  if 
anybody  asks  you  who's  going  in  it  —  well,  when  you've 
called  it  you  might  bring  me  my  bonnet  and  my  cloak." 

Andrea,  sitting  at  her  watch  by  the  dead,  heard  ques 
tion  and  answer  in  the  outer  room.  In  a  moment  the  door 
opened  and  the  nurse  looked  in.  But  before  she  could  an 
nounce  the  visitor  or  explain  that  she  seemed  one  not  to 
be  denied,  Madam  Brooke  came  in,  signed  the  nurse  to 
leave  them  and  put  her  arms  about  Andrea,  as  she  sat, 
and  kissed  her.  Andrea  thought  she  had  come  to  tell  her 
it  would  be  better  for  her  to  go  out  into  the  air,  to  go  out 
to  spend  the  night,  or  do  other  of  those  precautionary 
things  that  are  the  sane  expedients  of  watchers  less  ter 
ribly  pledged. 

"  I  couldn't,"  she  said,  rising  and  holding  the  dear  old 
hands  and  looking  into  the  kind  eyes.  "  I  promised  him. 
I've  broken  a  part  of  it.  That  may  not  matter,  now  he's 
really  gone  away.  Besides  —  " 

"Besides,"  said  the  old  lady,  "you  couldn't  bear  to. 
Of  course  you  mustn't  leave  him.  No,  my  darling!  But 
later  —  later  —  " 


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MAR  17  1935 


LD  21-100m-8,'34 


Tb 


